“I’ll go get your volunteers.” Vee hurried back into the cabin.
Her colleagues were as she left them, strapped in and arguing.
“What is going on out there?” demanded Troy.
“We’re in trouble, but we’re talking,” Vee told him. “Fourteen is in trouble and not talking. Terry, Troy, they need us to go over and help. We need to get into suits. Julia,” softer, lower, “Kevin’s kind of shaky. He’s going to need a pair of hands. Wait until we’re on our way to Fourteen; then come out and see what you can do.”
“When were you elected?” snorted Troy.
“When I was the one who got myself out of this cabin,” shot back Vee. “There’s lives on the line, Peachman. You want to leave Lindi Manzur to fry?” It was emotional blackmail and she knew it, but it worked. He shut up. “Come on.”
Troy and Terry reached the changing compartment shortly after she did. Josh and Adrian were already there. They suited each other up in silence. Vee went through the motions, trying not to think about the broken hulk of a scarab she’d seen. She didn’t want to think about how thin its walls were, how they were all deep down inside a poisonous, pressurized crucible that was just waiting for them to screw up so it could burn them all to ashes.
The airlock’s inner door closed and the pump started up, but instead of the normal, steady chug-chug-chug, it wheezed, snarled and sputtered, skipped beats and raced ahead as if to catch up.
God, we might not even be able to get out of here, thought Vee. She felt her self-control slipping a little. Which was unusual. She tried to be objective and examine her feelings, but that didn’t work. She eyed her helmet icons until she got Josh’s channel.
“Do you think they might still be all right?” she asked.
“Same as us,” said Josh. “If their hull holds and they have at least one of the pumps and a cooler tank, they can hang on.”
She licked her lips and asked the next question. “If there is a hull breach, how long do they have?”
“They don’t.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Vee rested her helmet against the wall and listened to the asthmatic pump. She let herself wish long and hard that she hadn’t volunteered for this, just to get that feeling out of the way. Then she prayed long and hard that the hull on Scarab Five would hold tight, because if it didn’t, she’d just killed Julia by letting her be the one to stay behind. That feeling went away more slowly, even after she assured herself that Kevin would make Julia get into a hardsuit as soon as he thought of it, or that Julia, who was not stupid, just easily stressed, would think of it on her own.
Finally, the outer hatch rolled open, giving Vee a chance to move away from her thoughts. She climbed out, right behind Adrian.
The world outside was like a petrified ocean, with its waves and currents frozen into black stone. Through the ridges, glowing ribbons of lava crept down well-worn paths. She imagined it smelled hot, almost spicy, the kind of smell you could taste.
“They’d get into suits, wouldn’t they?” asked Terry on the general channel, echoing Vee’s thoughts from the airlock.
“If they could get to them, yeah,” said Adrian. “The scarabs have bulkheads that seal if there’s a hull breach, just like a ship.”
Vee tried to clamp down on her imagination. Now was not the time to paint pictures of the future. Now was the time to slog forward, watch her footing and play it straight. Don’t look up. Be like a kid. If you don’t look at the scarab, it won’t change. It won’t get any worse because while you’re not looking at it, it isn’t there. Slog up the ridges, pick your way down the side, watch the ash piles that have collected in the hollows, notice how the charcoal veins look like the veins in the Discovery walls. Don’t look up.
“No!”
Adrian stumbled forward, trying for a loping run but only sliding and wobbling as he fought the ragged ground and the pressure. Ahead of him, the scarab’s side buckled sharply inward, as if it had been punched by an invisible fist. A thread-thin, black crack appeared.
Vee’s throat closed up tight.
“Veronica,” said Josh, tentatively.
“What?” Vee tore her gaze off Adrian’s stumbling form. Josh pointed ahead and to the right. Vee followed the line of his arm, until she saw the edge of the ragged wall the volcano made.
Something white floated next to it. Something shaped like an inverted teardrop or a hot-air balloon.
Vee froze in her tracks, tilted on the side of a stone wave. The balloon flew in an absolutely straight line. Vee saw a glint of silver on its swelling sides, like lenses, maybe.