The State of the Art(14)

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