Red Mars(220)

He woke up, and when he realized he had fallen asleep he was both appalled and amused, and promptly fell back asleep. Then after a time he was awake again, this time for good. The other refugees from the car were out of sight, though some stars seemed to move against the backdrop, and could have been them. No sign of the elevator, in space or down on the planet’s surface.

It was an odd way to go. Something like the night before a date with the firing squad, perhaps, spent in a dream of space. Death would be like space, except without the stars or the thinking. It was a tedious wait in some ways; it made him impatient, and he considered turning off his heating system and having done with it. Knowing he could do that made the wait easier, and he figured he would do it when the air supply was about to run out. The thought put his pulse up to 130, and he tried to concentrate on the planet below. Home sweet home. He was still in almost areosynchronous orbit, it had been hours and Tharsis was still below, though a bit farther west. He was over Marineris.

Hours passed and without intending to, he fell asleep again. When he woke there was a small silver spacecraft hanging before him like a UFO and he shouted with surprise, and started tumbling helplessly. He worked the rockets feverishly to bring himself under control, and when he managed it the craft was still there. There was a woman’s face in a side-window port, talking to him and pointing to her ear. He turned on the common band but she wasn’t on it; he couldn’t find her. He rocketed over toward the craft and scared the woman by nearly crashing into it. He managed to arrest and draw back a bit. The woman was gesturing; did he want in? He made a clumsy circle with gloved forefinger and thumb, nodding so vigorously that he started tumbling again. As he spun he saw a bay door open behind the window, on top of the craft. He got the suit stabilized and puffed toward the bay, wondering if it would be real when he got to it. He touched the open doorway and tears sprang to his eyes; he blinked and the teardrop spheres floated into his faceplate as he flattened against the bottom of the bay. He had an hour of air left.

When the bay was closed and pumped he unsealed his helmet and lifted it off. The air was thin and oxygen-rich, and cool. The bay lock door opened and he pushed through.

Women were laughing. There were two of them aboard, and they were in high spirits. “What were you going to do, land in that?” one asked.

“I was on the elevator,” he said, voice cracking. “We had to jump off. Have you picked up anyone else?”

“You’re the only one we’ve seen. Want a ride down?”

He could only gulp. They laughed at him.

“We’re amazed to run into anyone out here, boy! How many gs are you comfortable with?”

“I don’t know— three?”

They laughed again.

“Why, how many can you take?”

“A lot more than that,” said the woman who had looked out at him.

“A lot more,” he scoffed. “How many more can a person take?”

“We’ll find out,” the other woman said, and laughed. The little craft began to accelerate down toward Mars. The youth lay exhausted in a g chair behind the two women, asking questions and sucking down water and cheddar cheese from a tube. They had been on one of the mirror complexes and had hijacked this emergency descender after sending the mirrors tumbling in a tangle of molecule-thin sheets. They were complicating their descent by shifting into a polar orbit; they were going to land near the south polar cap.

Peter absorbed this in silence. Then they were bouncing wildly and the windows went white, then yellow, then a deep angry orange. Gravity forces jammed him back in his chair, his vision blurred and his neck hurt. “What a lightweight,” one of the women said, and he didn’t know if she meant him or the descender.

Then the g forces let off and the window cleared. He looked out and saw that they were dropping toward the planet in a steep dive, and were only a few thousand meters above the surface. He couldn’t believe it. The women kept the craft in its radical stoop until it seemed they were going to spear the sand, and then at the last minute they flattened out and again he was shoved back into his chair. “Sweet,” one of the women commented, and then boom, they were down and running over the layered terrain.

Gravity again. Peter clambered out of the descender after the two women, down a walktube and into a big rover, feeling stunned and ready to cry. There were two men in the rover, shouting greetings and hugging the women. “Who’s this?” they cried. “Oh, we picked him up up there, he jumped off the elevator. He’s still a bit spaced. Hey,” she said to him with a smile, “we’re down, it’s okay.”