BOUNDARY(138)

Chapter 44




Thoat grumbled its way over a large set of boulders, causing Joe to grumble in turn. Then the massive Martian rover crested the small ridge. A.J., who was currently sitting up front with Bruce, gave a whoop that almost deafened them.



"Yeah! Ahoy, me hearties, here be pirates!"



Helen moved up to take a look. In the distance, a kilometer or less away, squatted a blocky silhouette which she recognized from long-ago discussions with Joe and A.J. It was reassuringly familiar and, so to speak, very down to Earth in appearance. Pirate was a modification of the so-called "tuna can on a platform" design. It was neither elegant nor awe-inspiring, but looked exactly like what it was: a machine designed to do a job as efficiently and simply as possible.



She was flooded with relief. They were going to make it.



Joe voiced her thought. "Looks like we're going to make it, after all."



At that precise moment, Thoat's engine gave a hiccup, and then died. The huge vehicle continued on for some distance, slowing all the while, its momentum only grudgingly yielding to the inevitable. It was assisted in this quixotic attempt by the gentle downward incline they were on.



Despite Bruce's best efforts, however, Thoat finally came to rest about half a kilometer from Pirate.



"I can't believe it," A.J. muttered. "Dammit, Joe, you had to go open your mouth!"



"Forget the superstitions," Helen said, though a small part of her had the same blame Joe thought. "It was physics we were up against. Not quite enough fuel."



"Now what do we do?" Rich asked. "I absolutely refuse to believe there's nothing we can do. Not when we could get out of this thing and walk over to Pirate in a few minutes."



Captain Hathaway's voice came over the ship-to-surface band. "Thoat, we see you have stopped short of the objective. What is the problem?"



"A day late and a dollar short on the fuel situation, Captain," Bruce replied. "We're trying to figure out what we can do at this juncture. I haven't got a clue, myself."



Helen's mind was a blank, also. But she noticed that Madeline was sitting perfectly still, her eyes closed. It looked almost as though she were asleep, but the faint wrinkle on her otherwise smooth forehead showed she was thinking.



"Bruce, how much cable is on the winch?" she asked.



"About a hundred meters, Madeline. Why?"



Joe understood immediately, with A.J. just half a second behind.



"Might work!"



"If we have enough juice," A.J. cautioned.



"Oh, right, there's a beauty of an idea!" Bruce said. "We haul ourselves towards Pirate, like the dying man crawling through the desert."



"Your simile is not particularly cheering, Bruce."



"Sorry, wasn't thinking."



"That's still a hell of a distance," Joe mused, his earlier enthusiasm fraying at the edges. "Will the batteries take it?"



A.J. was already checking. "I don't know. I'm calling up the data we had on power drain while we were using the winch to help lower Thoat. Practical data's always helpful. Hmm. Watts . . . battery capacity . . ."



A.J. ran the simulation several times. "Shit," he finally concluded.



"I take it the answer is 'no.'"



"'Fraid so, Madeline. Best-case gives us about two hundred and fifty meters before the batteries die or the winch does."



"The winch?" Joe protested. "That thing was designed to be good for months of expeditions!"



"Some of my sensors are giving nasty readings. I think when Thoat did that drop-and-stop trick, it might have damaged part of the winch."



"And I don't suppose we have two hundred and fifty meters of refueling hose," Helen sighed.



"Less than a tenth of that, actually," Bruce answered. "We're off by an order of magnitude."



Helen stared in frustration at the familiar shape of the lander, so tantalizingly close yet impossibly far away. The situation was ludicrous. They'd crossed a hundred million miles in a few months, and now couldn't reach another ship that was not even a third of a mile away.



She suddenly realized what she'd been thinking. Another ship . . .



"Joe," she said quietly, almost afraid to voice a question which might simply result in another punctured hope. "Pirate is a rocket ship itself, right?"



"Yes, of course. How else would it—"



Suddenly he and A.J. looked at each other. "If Mohammed cannot come to the mountain—"



"—then the mountain can damn well come to Mohammed!" A.J. finished. He chewed on his lower lip. "Theoretically, of course. Still, that is a landing and takeoff vehicle over there. If we reprogram the systems . . ."