always.
He took a deep breath. The pain in his chest was gone. The turmoil in his mind had cleared away, too. Everything looked different, clearer than he had ever seen it before. As if he had looked at the world through a veil. Until now.
For the first time in his life Jamie felt an inner serenity, a certainty. He felt as sure and solid as the ancient mountains. This is what Grandfather Al told me about. I’ve found my balance, my place in the scheme of things. I know who I am now. I know where I belong. What I went through out there in the darkness has changed everything. Once you accept death nothing else can harm you. I can face anything now. Anything. He smiled inwardly. Not this time, Life Taker. Not yet.
'I want to thank you again, Tony…'
Reed’s brows knit together. 'There’s been enough of that. I’d prefer that you drop the subject, if you don’t mind.'
Jamie sat up and accepted the tray from Reed’s hands. 'Where’s Mikhail?' he asked.
'Off to help your stranded comrades.'
'By himself? Is he strong enough?'
'He got seven solid hours of sleep,' said Reed. 'He feels much better this morning. The vitamins are taking effect in him.'
Ivshenko called back to them from the cockpit, 'Mikhail has made it to their rover. He is helping Connors into his suit.'
'I’d better get into mine,' Reed muttered. 'I’m assigned to greeting our guests at the airlock hatch.'
'I’ll help,' said Jamie.
'You rest,' Reed said firmly. 'You’ve done enough. We can handle the remainder.'
Reed went back to the airlock. Jamie gulped down his reconstituted eggs and lemon-laced tea, then made his way forward. Ivshenko grinned at him as he ducked into the cockpit. The cosmonaut’s left leg was encased in a rigid plastic cast that stuck out awkwardly. Jamie was careful not to bang it as he slipped into the left-hand seat.
Through the bulbous canopy Jamie could see the winch line stretching tautly to the mired rover, on the far side of the dust-drowned crater.
'Connors is fully suited up,' Ivshenko said.
'What about Joanna and Ilona?' Jamie asked as he clamped on a headphone set.
'Dr. Malater is apparently too sick to get out of her bunk without help. Dr. Brumado seems somewhat better than that, but not much.'
'Maybe I ought to go back there and help them.'
'You stay here,' Ivshenko said firmly. 'Mikhail Andreivitch gave strict orders. He will get the job done.'
Jamie felt his body tense with something between frustration and guilt. He wanted to be helping, to be active, not sitting like a spectator. But a part of his mind told him, You’re in no shape to go outside again. You’ve done your share. You can’t do it all. Let the others help. The tension eased away.
Reluctantly, he accepted the situation and sat there in the cockpit, listening to the chatter among the people in the other rover. Joanna refused to go without her sample cases, the boxes that contained the precious specimens of Martian lichen. Jamie listened to their argument over the intercom radio link. Joanna’s voice was weak, exhausted, breathless. Yet her will was stronger than the toughest steel. She absolutely refused to leave the rover without the sample cases.
Vosnesensky abruptly dumped the problem in Jamie’s lap. 'Waterman, you are the scientific leader. What do you recommend?'
Ivshenko glanced across the cramped cockpit to Jamie.
'The reason we came all this way was to see if life exists here,' Jamie said. 'Can’t you attach the cases to the cable and send them here along with the people?'
A long pause, then Vosnesensky muttered, 'Very well.'
'Thank you,' Joanna’s voice said, as if from a great distance away.
The rover’s exterior camera was aimed forward, along the taut cable that stretched between the two vehicles, and cranked up to maximum magnification. In the display screen set into the center of the control panel Jamie saw the half-buried rover’s airlock hatch swing open. There stood Joanna, encased in her dayglo orange hard suit, with Vosnesensky’s blaring red suit beside her. The cosmonaut helped her into the climbing harness, then attached it to the winch line.
'We are ready,' Jamie heard in his earphone. 'Start the winch.'
The motor began whining. Joanna was pulled off her feet and began moving toward Jamie, dangling in the harness, her boots trailing bare centimeters above the rippled sand. Behind her, Vosnesensky attached four bulky boxes to the cable: the bio cases, with their samples of the Martian lichen safely inside them.
Joanna was absolutely silent as she rode across the treacherous lake of sand. Jamie heard Vosnesensky and Connors talking over the intercom, grunting and panting with the exertion of getting the half-conscious Ilona into her hard suit. Joanna’s suited figure rode past him, her gloved hands gripping the cable, but her feet dangling as if she were unconscious. Or dead.
She’s all right, Jamie said to himself. She just doesn’t know how to hang on properly. She’s forgotten what they showed us in training about riding the safety cable out of the shuttle if there’s a malfunction on the launch pad. She’ll be okay.
Still, it seemed like an hour before he heard the airlock hatch sigh open behind him. Jamie twisted in the cockpit seat to see Joanna step wearily into the module, encased in her bright suit, with Reed in his yellow suit supporting her like a solicitous robot helping one of its own kind. The pair of them clumped as far as the midship area, where Joanna half collapsed on one of the folded-up benches.
Jamie pulled himself out of his seat and stumbled aft toward her, surprised at how weak he still was.
'Can you take care of her?' Reed’s voice was muffled from inside his helmet. 'The sample cases are on their way and Mikhail’s already yelling at me to take them off the cable.'
'Sure, I’ll take her,' Jamie said, his voice shaking.
He helped Joanna lift off her helmet. She smiled at him feebly. Gently, he moved her to a half-reclining position, her back against the rover bulkhead, then tried to pull off her dust-spattered boots. The tang of ozone almost felt good, reviving, like smelling salts.
'I think I can manage the rest,' Joanna said, once he had tugged her boots off.
Jamie sagged down onto the bench beside her, then turned her halfway around so he could reach her backpack.
'I’ll help you.'
'I was afraid… you had died out there.'
'So was I.'
'It was a very brave thing you did.'
He tried to laugh. It came out more like a groan. 'Bravery is the other side of fear, I guess. I was afraid we were all going to die.'
'You saved us. You saved me.'
'Tony saved me. Tony and Mikhail. There’s enough heroism to go around for everybody.'
He undipped the last of the backpack connectors and lifted the bulky pack off her. It felt heavy, heavier than Jamie had remembered. Reaching across, he put it down on the opposite bench. Then he began to help unseal the suit’s hard-shell torso.
'Please, Jamie,' Joanna said. 'I can do it for myself now. You should be ready to help Ilona. She is really in bad condition.'
He nodded. 'Okay.'
Before he could get up from the bench, though, Joanna reached a hand to his cheek and pulled his face to hers. She kissed him tenderly.
'Thank you,' she whispered.
He clasped one hand around the nape of her neck, feeling the silky softness of her thick dark hair, and kissed her.
Before he could think of anything to say they both heard thumping sounds from the airlock.
