The Tempest (First Contact), page 22
“This is good,” Emma says, looking around the frozen wasteland. Miranda’s not so sure.
“I tagged several items from the air for investigation,” Marc says as robots trundle away from them, moving across the plain. “It’ll take a couple of hours, but between these three, we should retrieve wreckage from eleven nearby sites—none more than fifteen meters deep thanks to the wind.”
“And the fusion core?” Emma asks.
“Down there,” Marc says, pointing to a canyon roughly a hundred yards away. The far side is dominated by the glacier they flew over. A crevasse leads up to the bedrock, splitting the edge of the glacier into a chaotic field of ice.
“What climbing gear do we have?” Emma asks.
“Not much,” Marc replies. “I left my kit on the Sycorax.”
“We’re going to have to figure something out,” Emma says.
“It could be inaccessible,” Marc says.
“Ariel could retrieve it,” Miranda says as the three of them walk across the bedrock toward the scar running through the land.
Marc and Emma exchange a quick glance but neither of them addresses Miranda’s point, which leaves her confused. To her, Ariel’s the obvious solution. She wants to press the issue but thinks better of it.
As they get close to the edge, the bedrock curls away, having been eroded over the eons, making the approach to the canyon dangerous. White veins curl through the granite, accentuating the curve disappearing into the darkness. The scout has come down on the edge of the glacier. The transition zone between the bedrock and the glacier is chaotic. Ice falls have formed a jagged, impenetrable canyon in between.
“I’m not liking this,” Marc says.
Emma’s more bullish. Whereas Marc stays well back from the edge, not wanting to lose his footing, Emma continues down the ever-increasing smooth slope. Miranda stays beside her.
“What are you looking for?” Miranda asks.
“You won’t see anything,” Marc calls out from behind them.
Emma seems frustrated. She leans forward, staring into the depths. Serrated ice lies up against the bedrock, marking where the glacier has rubbed against the granite, wearing it smooth before falling away into the darkness.
“Emma,” Marc yells, sounding stern.
Reluctantly, she turns back and climbs the slope up to him.
“You’re getting too close to the edge,” he says. “If you slip and fall, there’s nothing to grab onto.”
“You worry too much. I’m okay, aren’t I?”
Marc backs up further, not being content until they’re on the flat expanse of bedrock again. To be fair to Emma, the prevailing wind comes across from the glacier, pushing them back, making it safer than it seems, or at least, Miranda thinks so.
“So what are we going to do?” an exasperated Emma asks, throwing her hands in the air and letting her arms fall back to her side. As she’s wearing the upper torso of her suit, her gesture is restricted by the thick material. Her wrists and hands are smaller than Marc’s and appear tiny within the padded upper arms of the suit.
“I don’t know,” Marc says, walking away from her. “But we’re going to be here for a few hours waiting on those rovers. We might as well explore north and look for a way down into the crevasse.”
Marc follows the edge of the dropoff. His head is down. He’s looking at the way the granite has worn and eroded over tens of thousands of years. There are hollows and rises. Occasionally, an ice-laden boulder lies on the bedrock. Patches of snow form in the lee of mounds. Miranda and Emma walk along beside him. Behind them, the navigation light on the bottom of the scout flashes at regular intervals, sending a strobe out through the darkness.
Miranda stops and looks back at the red landing lights bathing the desolate plain. The astronauts didn’t use those when they came down from the Sycorax. She wants to ask why. Back then, they probably wanted as much light as possible as they tried to figure out if the labs were still functional. As she turns away from the scout, she looks out across the bedrock rather than toward the glacier.
“Hey, what’s that?” she asks, pointing.
Marc comes to a halt. Emma continues walking without purpose. She looks depressed. Marc, though, raises his head and holds still for a moment.
“Em,” he says. “Look!”
The three of them walk out into the darkness, leaving the glacier at their backs. Snow curls around their legs, being blown across the plain. Miranda runs. Marc runs, or he tries to. Once again, he’s forgotten about the low gravity and breaks into a gentle lope, drifting several feet off the ground as he tries to rush.
“What is that?” Emma asks, being content to walk.
“Artificial,” Marc says, settling on the bedrock.
Dozens of rocks and boulders have been stacked together to form a rough pyramid reaching up to shoulder height. The broad base leads up on all sides to a single rock placed on top.
“Someone’s alive?” Miranda asks.
“Someone was alive,” Marc replies.
“But this isn’t a grave, right?” Emma asks.
“No. It’s a marker.”
Emma turns, passing through 360 degrees as she looks around the plain. “A marker for what? Why would you stack up rocks like this?”
“So you don’t get lost,” Marc says. “Someone survived the crash. They came out here scavaging for materials.”
“Makes sense,” Emma says.
“The debris was so widespread they had to search the whole plateau, but…”
“But how do you avoid getting lost?” Miranda says, anticipating his logic. She points further into the darkness, away from the chasm leading to the glacier. There’s another pile of rocks roughly two hundred meters away.
“Smart,” Marc says. “Not only does it give them a point of reference to avoid getting lost, these rock piles act like a grid reference, allowing them to know which areas have been searched.”
“So this went on for some time,” Emma says.
“Probably years,” Marc says. “You don’t put this much effort into a one-time act. They must have searched further and further afield as the years went on.”
“Further afield from what?” Emma asks.
“Their base,” Marc says, turning back toward the glacier. He sweeps his hand through the air, saying. “If I crashed here, that’s where I’d look for shelter. Ice is a great insulator. Get down in that crevasse out of the wind and you can stay warm.”
“Do you think they’re still alive?” Miranda asks, feeling excited at the prospect of finding someone else on Altair IV.
“I don’t know,” Marc replies. “I doubt it. Even if your dad’s right and our two biomes can interact without being toxic to each other, there’s not much to eat out here.”
“How far do you think these extend?” Emma asks, pointing at the distant pile barely visible through the gloomy half-light.
“Far enough that they could find their way home,” Marc says. “I suspect it runs along the edge of this crevasse rather than deep into the plateau. They probably mirror the crash site.”
“So whoever this is,” Emma says, “they’ve already picked the bones clean.”
“Of things that are useful in the cold,” Marc says with vapor forming on each breath. “But probably not the things we’re looking for. Electronics aren’t too much use in an ice age.”
The three of them follow the crevasse running along the edge of the bedrock for almost an hour, noting the various rock piles inland. Regardless of how long they walk, there’s always at least one in sight, barely visible through the haze of snow and ice blowing across the desolate plain. The stars above them are vibrant.
“What do you think your father’s doing?” Marc asks.
“Freaking out,” Miranda replies.
“You’re in good hands,” Emma says.
“Is she?” Marc asks, laughing.
“What are we looking for?” Miranda asks, wanting to change the subject. She doesn’t feel comfortable talking about her father. Ariel will have told him she left on the scout. He’ll pace before the window of the dome, thinking the worst, waiting impatiently for her to return. What’s he going to do when she gets back? Get angry? Yell at her for being stupid? Ground her? Hah!
“That,” Marc says, breaking her train of thought. He points ahead of them. A pyramid of rocks has been stacked close to the crevasse. All the other piles are inland.
“You think that marks home?” Emma asks.
“I hope so.”
As they get closer, they see two climbing ropes lying stretched out beside the boulders. They’re anchored to the bedrock with a steel pin driven into the granite. The ropes lead down over the side of the slope, disappearing into the darkness.
“Looks like they had some climbing gear,” Marc says.
“Good. This is good,” Emma says.
“Are you ready for this?” Marc asks.
“Ready,” Miranda says.
“Oh, no. Not you,” he replies.
“What? No. I’m coming. I have to.”
“You don’t,” Marc says, resting his hand on her shoulder. “Listen. I don’t know what we’re going to find down there. Given this is on the edge of a glacier, the trail could have collapsed. Hell, after all these years, that rope could break.”
“But I—”
“But nothing,” Marc says. “Wait here. We’ll try to stay in contact over the radio.”
“Try?” Miranda replies, troubled by that term.
“I don’t know how well our radios will work down there. These things are good for line-of-sight. Depending on how deep we go, there could be hundreds of meters of solid granite between us. The signal should bounce around a little and perhaps reflect off the clouds, but if you don’t hear from us, don’t freak out.”
“Don’t freak out?” Miranda says, on the verge of freaking out.
“Wait here until we get back. If we lose contact and it becomes obvious we’re not coming back, hit the big blue autopilot button in the scout and she’ll take you home.”
“And strap in,” Emma says.
“Oh, yeah. Don’t forget to strap in,” Marc says.
Miranda doesn’t like the thought of being left alone in the darkness on the desolate plateau, but she can’t argue with him. As much as she doesn’t want to admit it, she knows he’s right. As much as she loves adventure, there’s a good chance one or both of them isn’t coming back from this descent into the crevasse.
The Cave
Snow and ice whip around Marc’s legs as he stands on the edge of the frozen plateau. As exhilarating as it is to have potentially found a working fusion core, the darkness seems to encroach upon them. The eternal night on Altair IV feels heavy. Perhaps it’s the wind, but he feels unsettled. Descending into the crevasse to explore the depths of a fractured glacier on an alien moon is a distinctly bad idea.
“I’ll go down,” Marc says to Emma. “You wait here.”
“What? No way.”
“If something happens to me—”
“If something happens to you,” Emma says, cutting him off, “you’ll need someone down there to help you.”
“But the Sycorax? The colonists?”
“This is how we save them,” Emma says.
Marc’s not so sure. If an ice shelf gives way beneath them and they plunge into the darkness, the colonists will die on the Sycorax within a few months as the power fails. Marc finds himself doubting the decision for both of them to come down to the moon, let alone for both of them to descend into the crevasse, but Emma’s right. They can’t play this safe. They’ve got to go hard on getting that fusion core as it changes the equation entirely. Not only will it mean they’ve restored full power, they can potentially restore the warp field and head on to New Haven—probably not under full steam, but they might make 50% of the speed of light. If they die down there, everyone dies in orbit. It’s one hell of a gamble. Ordinarily, Marc would protest that it’s too risky, but they’ve got nothing left to lose. They’ve already lost. This is a Hail Mary pass from his own 10-yard line to a running back sprinting down the side of the field. It’s not out of desperation so much as being aggressive right until the end. They’re fighting to the last second for a win.
“Okay. Okay,” he says.
Marc turns around so he has his back to the crevasse, leaving him facing the rock pile on the granite plateau. He removes his gloves, not wanting to lose his grip on the frozen climbing ropes. His suit trousers have pockets on the lower leg so he stuffs his gloves into one of them. As the gloves are bulky, he should separate them into different pockets, but out of habit, he shoves them both in the same one. Even before he starts his descent, in the back of his mind, he knows this particular decision is a bad idea. He should separate them, but he feels constrained to keep going. He doesn’t have time for messing around with a stupid pair of gloves. He’s got to find that damn fusion core.
Marc straddles the two ropes and leans down, picking one of them up in his hands. The line is cold. He wraps it around behind his waist, keeping his left hand out in front of him while using the rope in his right hand as a brake. He’s standing with the rope curling around the back of his waist. It’s a classic mountaineering descent, although normally it would be accompanied by a climbing harness and carabiners to lock him into the rope. The danger here is he can easily fall.
“This would be easier with a harness,” he says.
No one replies.
Slowly, he begins to descend, walking backward down the granite surface.
Miranda watches as he lowers himself over the edge. He smiles at her, wanting to encourage her, but her face looks pale and lifeless in the dark. With each step back, he loses some of his ability to see her. Eventually, she’s gone altogether. She’s still up on the plateau no more than ten meters from him, but she and Emma might as well be ten kilometers away.
The edge of the bedrock is heavily sloped but not vertical. Someone’s carved foot holds into the rock, helping the descent. From the way the rock has been chiseled, they used a handheld jackhammer, telling Marc at least some of the equipment on the Copernicus survived the crash intact.
He slips.
Marc’s right boot catches some ice and he keels over, slamming into the frozen granite with his shoulder. In the darkness, he panics. He gives up on a climbing posture and grabs at the rope above him with both hands. His fingers tighten on the icy line, but it slides through his fingers. It takes all of his might to arrest his fall.
Marc swings back and forth, kicking and searching with his boots, unable to see the footholds below him.
“Are you okay?” Emma yells from out of sight above him.
“Just,” he says, struggling to speak. His gloves come loose. They fall out of the pocket on his leg and tumble into the darkness. “Fuck!”
“Marc!” Miranda yells.
“I’m good. I’m good,” he struggles to say. Who is he kidding? With a tremor in his voice, he’s not even fooling himself. “Just about there.”
By there, he means back on the track with its carved insets, not there as in down at the bottom of the climb.
Transparent ice has formed on sections of the granite, changing the texture from rough and coarse with plenty of grip to a death trap with each step. He needs to be more careful.
“Be more careful,” Miranda calls out. Great timing, kid, he thinks. Yeah, perfect timing. Rather than helping, her comment leaves him feeling resentful. His pride is hurt. He’s a climber! Mentally, he shakes it off, reminding himself he doesn’t have crampons, carabiners or a climbing rig. He’s got to slow things down and not be so damn cocky. This ain’t a race.
Marc reaches a section where the foot holds have been cut a little deeper, allowing him to get his boots better positioned. With each step, though, he kicks around, checking for ice and dislodging any loose rocks.
Emma takes the other rope. He can see the motion of the line dangling next to him. She should wait, goddamn it. He wants to call out to her but his pride gets the better of him. He’ll be fine. He hopes.
Marc activates the lights on the shoulder of his suit. The further he descends into the crevasse, the less ambient starlight reaches him, making the gloom on Altair IV seem even darker.
Even though he’s not wearing a helmet, Marc’s got a Snoopy cap on for warmth. Fine flakes of snow drift through the air, being dislodged by Emma as she descends the second rope above him. A few of the flakes drift inside the open ring collar of his suit. Those flakes that slide down his back send a chill through him. He should have told Emma to give him a ten-minute head-start.
Marc reaches an outcrop as the ropes come to an end. This is why the climbing lines were placed here, to allow easy access to the landing. While he’s waiting for Emma to join him, he examines the path ahead. It winds back toward where the scout is parked on the plain, but it’s roughly a hundred meters beneath the edge of the plateau. The ledge is covered in broken ice. From what he can tell, no one has walked this path in a long time. Someone’s mounted makeshift hand holds in those sections where the path narrows, but for the most part, it’s a ledge about five meters wide.
“I’m at the bottom of the climb,” he says into the microphone curling around beside his lips. He’s speaking more for Miranda than Emma. “It’s pretty dark down here.”
Miranda replies, “—if—ice—avoid—dark.”
“Can you repeat that?” Marc asks, walking away from the ropes and trying to improve the signal.
“—ever—glacier—on the plateau.”
“I can’t hear you,” Marc says, hoping his suit transmitter is a little more powerful and can get through to her. He repeats himself. “Wait at the scout. Wait at the scout. Wait at the scout.”
“—scout,” is the reply, followed by silence.
Marc paces. He’s not happy about being out of contact with Miranda but the only options left are all bad.
