BOUNDARY(127)

Conversations drifted rather like John Carter for a while, as the shuttle headed for a particular point in time and space. "Okay, mates, can the chatter," Bruce finally said, as the time approached. "I'm about to take us down, and I don't need any distractions."



A.J. clamped his mouth shut.



"Nike, this is John Carter, we are about to begin deorbit burn."



"This is Nike, John Carter. You are about to begin deorbit burn, we copy."



"Burn starting in five, four, three, two, one—"



Once more the rockets roared, vibrating the shuttle with the power of contained explosions. The great red planet began to swell.



"Return all your trays to the upright position, please. We're about to experience a spot of turbulence."



"Breathe, A.J.," Helen said quietly.



He suddenly realized that he actually had not been breathing, as though he'd hold his breath the entire way down. "Jesus. But, well, Helen, this . . ."



"I know."



A faint vibration tickled at the edges of the senses, then grew. A keening whine began. Suddenly, for the first time since they'd arrived in orbit, Mars seemed to be down instead of up or over there. The pink-red-orange-brown surface was starting to look like a landscape instead of a globe.



John Carter was in the atmosphere now, its meteoric speed being slowed by friction that heated its outer shell, turning it to a glow which those on Nike could easily detect. Ionization cut out all exterior communications as the ship was briefly enveloped in a sheath of blazing fire. John Carter shuddered, Bruce preparing to take full control of the shuttle as they dropped to atmospheric speed.



THUNK.



"What was that?"



"Bloody hell."



"I said, what was that?" Madeline repeated, with more urgency. Sitting in the copilot's seat, she could see the telltales rising on Bruce's suit.



"Left wing extension buggered. And I'm getting poor response in the rest. Joe, no offense, mate, but this is the last bloody reentry I'm doing with you on board." Bruce's voice was light, but an undercurrent of tension made his words serious.



"Shimatta," Dr. Sakai said, calm resignation in the Japanese curse.



"What caused it?"



"Sorry, no way to tell right now. Bad parts, heating got to one of the joints, micrometeor, gremlins, the much-feared Martian Anti-Spacecraft System, take your pick. I gotta get us down in one piece first, then we can bloody well worry about the whys."



"You'll do it," Joe said.



"Mate, I didn't do it last time. We punched out, remember?"



"Well . . ."



"There's no ejection pod in this bird, I remind you," Bruce continued relentlessly, as if he found some peculiar solace in contemplating the worst. "Parachutes are no use in atmosphere this thin. I've got to put her down somehow so she doesn't completely come apart on us."



A.J. finally forced himself to grasp that they were in a genuine crisis. By reflex, he brought up all of the sensors and tied in.



"Look, we have—damn. Yeah, you're losing controls, Bruce. I can feed you some more data, though. Nike, this is John Carter, we have an emergency situation here. Clear everyone out of the satellite feeds, we need all the info we can get now."



"An emergen— Got you. Attention all personnel, this is the captain speaking. John Carter is having trouble. We need the entire satellite network cleared for the shuttle's use."



The remote communications started to synchronize. "Okay,"



A.J. said, "we're losing altitude faster, at least some. Best calculations . . . Bruce, you're going to have to make it a full powered landing. No way around it. We won't be able to make orbit again without refueling, but we can burn that bridge when we get to it."



"How much control will I have by then? Something's making this bird progressively harder to fly. Maybe a leak, or a slow fire, or something."



A.J. ran a couple of simulations as the numbers from the embedded sensors poured through the systems. "About half, I'd say. You'll have to land us with really sluggish controls. Think ahead of time. I'll give you a running calculation that'll cue you as to when to act to get things done."





"Right."



John Carter was now screaming down the center of Valles Marineris. The pink-orange sky set off the towering, darker cliffs to either side as the ground below swept past. The terrain was red, black-splotched, streaked with white—every color, really, now that they were close enough—all of it rough and smooth and mysteriously textured. It was an alien landscape that A.J. had modeled a thousand times. But this time it was real, flowing past a window instead of across a screen. Vibrating, blurry at times, but real, real, real. They were about to land on Mars!