there is so little variety, so little sign of
life.Sometimes we see a stain on a rock that might
be plant life, but I can't tell, and the suit doesn't
know because most of its external eyes and tactiles
were burned out in the fall, and its analyzer is in no
better condition than the AG or the transceiver.The
suit's briefing on the planet didn't include a
comprehensive Ecology, so we don't even know in
theory whether the discolourations could be
plants.Maybe we are the only life here, maybe
there's nothing living or thinking for thousands and
thousands of kilometres.The thought appals me.
'What are you thinking about?'
'Nothing,' I tell it.
'Talk.You should talk to me.'
But what is there to say?And why should I talk
anyway?
I suppose it wants to make me talk so I'll forget the
steady march, the tramp-tramp of my feet a couple
of centimetres away from the ochre soil of this
barren place.
I remember that when I was still in shock, and
delirious, on the first day, I thought I stood outside
us both and saw the suit open itself, letting my
precious, fouled air out into the thin atmosphere,
and I watched me dying in the airless cold, then
saw the suit slowly, tiredly haul me out of itself,
stiff and naked, a reptile-skin reverse, a chrysalis
negative.It left me scrawny and nude and pathetic
on the dusty ground and walked away, lightened
and empty.
And maybe I'm still afraid it will do that, because
together we might both die, but the suit, I'm fairly
sure, could make it by itself quite easily.It could
sacrifice me to save itself.It's the sort of thing a lot
of humans would do.
'Mind if I sit down?' I say, and collapse onto a
large boulder before the suit can reply.
'What hurts?' it asks.
'Everything.Mostly my legs and my feet.'
'It'll take a few days for your feet to harden and
your muscles to tone up.Rest when you feel like
it.There's no sense in pushing yourself too hard.'
'Hmm,' I say.I want it to argue.I want it to tell me to
stop whining and keep walking but it doesn't want
to play.I look down at my dangling legs.The suit's
surface is blackened and covered in tiny pits and
scars.Some hair-fine filaments wave, tattered and
charred.My suit.I've had the thing for over a
century and I've hardly used it.The brain's spent
most of its time plugged into the main house unit
back home, living at an added level of
vicariousness.Even on holidays, I've spent most of
my time on board ship, rather than venture out into
hostile environments.
Well, we're sure as shit in a hostile environment
now.All we have to do is walk half-way round an
airless planet, overcome any and all obstacles in
our way, and if the place we're heading for still
exists, and if the suit's systems don't pack up
completely, and if we don't get picked off by
whatever destroyed the module, and if we aren't
blown away by our own people, we're saved.
'Do you feel like going on now?'
'What?'
'We'd better be on our way, don't you think?'
'Oh.Yes.All right.' I lower myself to the desert
floor.My feet ache intensely for a while, but as I
start to walk the pain ebbs.The slope looks just the
way it did kilometres back.I am already breathing
deeply.
I have a sudden and vivid image of the base as it
might be, as it probably is: a vast, steaming crater,
ripped out of the planet during the same attack that
downed us.But even if that is the reality, we agreed
it still makes sense to head there; rescuers or
reinforcements will go there first.We have a better
chance of being picked up there than anywhere
else.Anyway, there was no module wreckage to
stay beside on the ground; it was travelling so fast
it burned up, even in this thin atmosphere, the way
we very nearly did.
I still have a vague hope we'll be spotted from
space, but I guess that's not likely now.Anything
left intact up there is probably looking outwards.If
we'd been noticed when we fell, or spotted on the
surface, we'd have been picked up by now,
probably only hours after we hit the dirt.They can't
know we're here, and we can't get in touch with
them.So all we can do is walk.
The rock and stones are getting gradually smaller.
I walk on.
It's night.I can't sleep.
The stars are spectacular, but no solace.I am cold,
too, which doesn't help.We are still on the slope;
we travelled a little over sixteen kilometres today.I
hope we'll come to the lip of the escarpment
tomorrow, or at least to some sort of change in the
landscape.Several times today, while I walked, I
had the impression that for all my effort, we
weren't moving anywhere.Everything is so
uniform.
Damn my human-basic ancestry.My side and belly
are hurting badly.My legs and feet held out better
than I expected, but my injuries torment me.My