“He won't be here for three years. His family is leaving on the next ship with us. So give up and focus.”
After a final suit-check, Kyle and Henry stepped into the lock, towing nets of gear behind them. They sweated inside the slick suits. The outside temperature was -235C. It took twenty minutes for the base computers to decide the suits had adjusted enough to open the door. They were still sweating when they stepped out onto the sea of ice surrounding Little Siberia. To their right, solid and clear methane crystals the size of houses were half-covered with blown ices and snows. Paths to the left led to Creeper Fields.
Henry followed Kyle a half-klick to where the Styx met Pluto.
Vines overflowed from the sky to add layers of dying material to the methane and nitrogen ices that covered Pluto. Creepers dug in, and ran along the ground like frozen spaghetti. They piled up onto each other, dying together. Methane snow crystals danced in the air around the wide white leaves. Wherever the leaves or flowers made contact with the surface they turned brittle and broke as the men stepped on them. Here and there a vine twisted near the surface, not yet trapped and frozen, as if the Styx harbored snakes.
The base team had guided some of the vines to supply the base. Water and oxygen were needed, and plant broth made good fertilizer for more palatable crops. Years ago they had turned most of the vines back onto the trellis, so that the jungle was growing back into itself, back toward Charon, thicker every year.
Vines and stems fanned out across the trellis as they neared Pluto, and stray vines still piled up on the ice. Kyle wondered if the plants were seeking trace elements. Any such would be buried deep; these surface snows had rained out of the sky, over and over during Pluto's 247.7-year cycles, plating over anything that resembled soil. The plants would have to dig deep.
They walked and tested and checked, looking up to see how the vines tangled amongst each other. They selected a medium-thickness vine, wide as their thighs, and well anchored in the ice. It had no leaves for at least the first few hundred meters.
They tested their siphons. There was pressure in the vines. Kyle and Henry could get liquid oxygen, water and plant broth into the suits using modified siphons Henry had jury-rigged from insulated pipes. It was slow. The siphons used tiny valves and bladders to deal with pressure differences. Liquid slipped through chambers to reach reservoirs in the suits.
The Styx fed on solar wind, on water from Charon, and on itself. Oxygen and carbon dioxide swirled through the leaves. Parasite bacteria covered the leaves, turning oxygen to carbon dioxide. The creepers ate the CO2and replenished the oxygen. Sunlight became sugar for broth.
The suits moved all the time. What was doing that? All those tiny cameras, IR and UV and radar, zoom and fisheye, pressure sensors and medical readouts and who knew what. The sensation was unsettling.
Jason and Paul lumbered across the ice in a small drive-all, and watched Henry and Kyle load supplies into a closed basket that would carry the supplies up, buoyed by a circle of remote-controlled probes. The probes weren't designed to carry any weight at all. Twelve harnessed together could manage thirty kilograms and still maneuver. Every kilo over that was a trade-off in risk vs. material. The basket contained an extra suit with attached color-coded siphons for Lark, a long knife, a single shared habitat to sleep in, extra rope, and a med-kit. There was just enough rope that the basket massed just under thirty kilograms. To save power, the basket would follow them at the end of each day's hike.
“Suriyah's right,” Jason said. “You're both crazy. I love you for it. Get that girl home so we can celebrate her being sixteen.” He touched them both—the suited version of a hug—and said, “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” both men answered in unison. Paul waved and made a ‘camera rolling’ gesture. The adventure suits were broadcasting.
Kyle responded to Paul's cue, saying “Welcome, audience. Jason and Paul just wished us luck. Luck would make a nice change.” He thought he sounded stupid and campy.
Calvin Paulie was taking the first turn monitoring and splicing the feed from Christy Base on Charon. Watchers were tuning in from the near parts of the outer system, and an edited version was scheduled for consumption by sunward planets and moons and bases. “Good luck to our adventurers, Kyle and Henry,” Calvin rumbled, “as they take off to climb the mysterious and dangerous creepers of Pluto and rescue Kyle's daughter, Lark.”
Unexpectedly, it seemed like private pain was being made too public. Kyle winced and stepped back. He gestured to Henry. The slower man would set the pace.
Henry reached for a stem with both hands and tugged on it. As Henry put his weight on the creeper, it demonstrated elasticity, pooling at his boots. “So far, so good,” Henry mumbled, and took another handful of the thick stem. He pulled hand over hand until the creeper took his weight. Now he was actually a half-meter above Pluto's surface. Finally, the creeper seemed willing to let the men climb.
“Henry,” said Kyle, “remember not to grab the trellis itself, ever. It's too strong. It might cut your suit.”
“It's also pretty close to invisible,” Henry puffed.
A fifty-foot insulated Kevlar rope separated the two climbers. Kyle waited. When Henry was near the end of the rope, Kyle grabbed a handful of stem and succeeded in pulling Henry halfway down. Calvin's voiceover played in Kyle's radio. “Looks like a rocky start,” he said, “Or a ropy one. We're wishing you well.” Kyle ignored him, reaching for another boot hold. The vine only compressed a little under his hands; it was hard to grip. It grew as he held it. The wrong direction. Down. The Styx grew almost a kilometer a day. Of course, Lark and Shooter would be moving the same direction. It was like trying to climb a cross between a down escalator and a living boa constrictor.
Henry had modified the toes of their boots; they sprouted tiny steel barbs which helped keep their feet anchored to the stems. Liquids from inside the plant swelled out and froze to the surface whenever Kyle dug his toes in too hard.
There was little gravity to fight, but balance and grip were challenges. It got easier, and in five minutes they'd actually gained thirty meters and found a rhythm.
Lights from their helmets bobbed up and down in Pluto's dusky mid-day.
Half an hour passed. Calvin broke in twice with inane questions, and Kyle hissed at him, “Quit distracting us.”
“I'll need some good footage soon.”
