“Beautiful,” breathed Troy, and this time Josh had to agree with him.
“Fifteen kilometers from touchdown and everything green and go,” said Adrian. “You’re not getting the most interesting landscape, but it’s tough to make a good landing anywhere interesting.”
“Julia, have you opened your eyes yet?” asked Veronica.
“No,” Julia said, her voice pitched only slightly higher than normal. “I’ll wait until we get to the ground.”
“Suit yourself.” Vee shrugged in her straps. “The colors are amazing.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Three kilometers,” said Adrian. “If you squint to the upper right of your screens, you’ll see beacon A-34, which means we’re right on target.”
Beneath them, the largest furrows spread apart. Smaller furrows following the same drunken path appeared between them. The whole plain became a huge, wrinkled, color-splashed bedsheet, bent at the edges, as if viewed through a fish-eye lens. The high-pressure atmosphere played all kinds of interesting tricks with the light.
The patch of ground Josh could see became smaller and darker, until only a few rocks were visible. Then nothing but blackness, followed fast by a crunching noise from below. The scarab came to rest on a small slope, tilted up and to the left.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect landing,” said Kevin. “You are now free to come out and see the world through the big window.”
Julia was already fumbling with her buckles. Vee obviously took a second to read the directions beside her screen, because she was on her feet and heading out into the main cabin before Julia was even sitting up. Josh waited behind to make sure Julia, Troy, and Terry had successfully extricated themselves and then followed Veronica out.
Outside the front window, the rumpled landscape stretched as far as he could see. The horizon, such as it was, was lost in a dim blur that might have been dust or mountains or simply the thick atmosphere distorting the light. They were a fair way into the long Venusian day. The dim sunlight that filtered through the clouds showed a ground that reminded Josh of the Painted Desert; red, brown, orange all mixed together along with great stretches of black, rippled stone left over from old lava flows. Here and there, an outcropping of halite or obsidian glinted dully in the ashen light.
Josh watched the investigative team crowd around the pilot seats, craning their necks to see out the window. Then he saw the muscles in Kevin’s jaw tighten.
“We’ve got a drive ahead of us,” Josh said, trying to sound polite, if not cheerful. “We can use the time to get into suits. That way there’ll be less of a delay when we reach the Discovery.”
And less time Kevin has to deal with you guys crammed into the cockpit.
As if to confirm Josh’s thought, Kevin glanced up at him and Josh read a silent thank-you in his eyes.
The statement brought universal agreement, and the team of tourists started filing back toward the changing area. Vee gave Josh a knowing look as she passed. Yeah, she would be the one to figure out what he was really trying to do. That was all right as long as she didn’t try to counteract it. Kevin gave Adrian the nod, and Adrian unbuckled himself to follow the tourists.
“And here’s where the fun really starts,” he muttered to Josh as he passed.
You’ll forgive me if I agree with the words and not the tone, thought Josh as he followed Adrian down the corridor to the suit lockers. I can believe we’re almost there.
The scarab crawled forward along the uneven ground. Its bumping, rocking motion added to the confusion of the suit-up procedure, but eventually Josh and the rest of the team all got safely into their hardsuits. Adrian, with Josh’s help, double-checked everyone’s equipment and connections and made them run down the displays to make sure those were all functional.
Everything looked green and go. Mechanical failure in the suit—joint failure, pump failure, loss of seal integrity—any of these could mean instant death. If that knowledge added extra tension to the team, Josh couldn’t see it. Even Julia, now that she was on the ground, seemed to have calmed down and become wrapped up in the business of checking her equipment, as if this were something she did every day.
Admit it. You can’t see beyond your own nose right now, unless it’s to look at that hole in the ground, Josh admonished himself. But he couldn’t really make himself care. The Discovery waited for them. He had made it. He was going to be inside, soon, very soon.
Finally, the scarab came to a lurching halt
“We’re here!” called back Kevin.
Here. We’re here. I’m here.