there are only two stars visible on normal
sight.With the external glasses tinted and polarized
I can just see thin wispy clouds, high up.The
atmosphere is still, down at this level, and no dust
moves.I shiver, bumping inside the suit, as though
the vacuous loneliness bruised me.It was the same
the first day, when I thought the suit was dead.
'Are you ready to set off?' the suit says.I sigh and
get to my feet, dragging the weight of the suit up
with me for a moment before it, tiredly, flexes too.
'Yes.Let's get moving.'
We set off.It is my turn to walk.The suit is heavy,
my side aches monotonously, my stomach feels
empty.The boulderfield stretches on into the edges
of the distant sky.
I don't know what happened, which is annoying,
though it wouldn't make any difference if I did
know.It wouldn't have made any difference when it
happened, either, because there was no time for me
to do anything.It was a surprise: an ambush.
Whatever got us must have been very small or very
far away, otherwise we wouldn't be here, still
alive.If the module had taken any standard-sized
warhead full on there would be only radiation and
atoms left; probably not an intact molecule.Even a
near miss would have left nothing recognizable to
the unaided human eye.Only something tiny -
perhaps not a warhead at all but just something
moving fast - or a more distant miss, would leave
wreckage.
I must remember that, hold on to that.However bad
I may feel, I am still alive, when there was every
chance that I would never get this far, even as a
cinder, let alone whole and thinking and still able
to walk.
But damaged.Both of us damaged.I am injured, but
so is the suit, which is worse, in some ways.
It is running mostly on external power, soaking up
the weak sunlight as best it can, but so inefficiently
that it has to rest at night, when both of us have to
sleep.Its communications and AG are wrecked,
and the recycle and medical units are badly
damaged too.All that and a tiny leak we can't
find.I'm frightened.
It says I have internal bruising and I shouldn't be
walking, but we talked it over and agreed that our
only hope is to walk, to head in roughly the right
direction and hope we're seen by the base we were
heading for originally, in the module.The base is a
thousand kilometres south of the northern ice
cap.We came down north of the equator, but just
how far north, we don't know.It's going to be a long
walk, for both of us.
'How do you feel now?'
'Fine,' the suit replies.
'How far do you think we'll get today?'
'Maybe twenty kilometres.'
'That's not very much.'
'You're not very well.We'll do better once you
heal.You were quite ill.'
Quite ill.There are still some little bits of sickness
and patches of dried blood within the helmet,
where I can see them.They don't smell any more,
but they don't look very pleasant either.I'll try
cleaning them up again tonight.
I am worried that, apart from anything else, the suit
isn't being completely honest with me.It says it
thinks our chances are fifty-fifty, but I suspect it
either doesn't have any idea at all, or knows things
are worse than it's telling me.This is what comes
of having a smart suit.But I asked for one; it was
my choice, so I can't complain.Besides, I might
have died if the suit hadn't been as bright as it is.It
got the two of us down here, out of the wrecked
module and down through the thin atmosphere
while I was still unconscious from the explosion.A
standard suit might have done almost as well, but
that probably wouldn't have been enough; it was a
close run thing even as it was.
My legs hurt.The ground is fairly level, but
occasionally I have to negotiate small ridges and
areas of corrugated ground.My feet are sore too,
but the pain in my legs worries me more.I don't
know if I'll be able to keep going all day, which is
what the suit expects.
'How far did we come yesterday?'
'Thirty-five kilometres.'
The suit walked all of that, carrying me like a dead
weight.It got up and walked, clasping me inside it
so I wouldn't bump around, and marched off, the
wispy remains of its crippled emergency
photopanels dragging over the dusty ground behind
it like the wings of some strange, damaged insect.
Thirty-five klicks.I haven't done a tenth of that yet.
I'll just have to keep going.I can't disappoint it.I'd
be letting the suit down.It has done so well to get
us here in one piece, and it walked all that long
way yesterday, supporting me while I was still
rolling my eyes and drooling, mumbling about
walking in a dream and being the living dead so I
can't let it down.If I fail I harm us both, lessening
the suit's chances of survival, too.
The slope goes on.The ground is boringly uniform,
always the same rusty brown.It frightens me that