'We couldn't glide down, could we?' I ask the
suit.That's how we got through the atmosphere,
after all.The suit used the minuscule amount of AG
it had left, and somehow got the tattered
photopanel sheet to function as a parachute.
'No.The AG is almost certain to fail completely
next time we try it, and the parachute trick we'd
need too much space, too much drop to ensure
deployment.'
'We have to climb?'
'We have to climb.'
'All right, we'll climb.' We get up, approach the
edge.
Night again.I am exhausted.So tired, but I cannot
sleep.My side is tender to the touch and my head
throbs unbearably.It took us the whole afternoon
and evening to get down here to the plains, and we
both had to work at it.We nearly fell, once.A good
hundred-metre drop with just some flakes of slatey
stone to hold on to until the suit kicked a
foothold.Somehow we made it down without
snagging and tearing further the photopanels.More
good luck than skill, probably.Every muscle seems
to hurt.I'm finding it hard to think straight.All I
want to do is twist and turn and try to find a
comfortable way to lie.
I don't know how much of this I can take.This is
going to go on for a hundred days or more, and
even if the still undiscovered leak doesn't kill me I
feel like I'm going to die of exhaustion.If only they
were looking for us.Somebody walking in a suit on
a planet sounds hard to find, but shouldn't be
really.The place is barren, homogeneous, dead and
motionless.We must be the only movement, the
only life, for hundreds of kilometres at least.To our
level of technology we ought to stand out like a
boulder in the dust, but either they aren't looking or
there's nobody left to look.
But if the base still exists, they must see us
eventually, mustn't they?The sats can't spend all
their time looking outwards, can they?They must
have some provision for spotting enemy
landings.Could we have just slipped through?It
doesn't seem possible.
I look at my photographs again.They appear a
hundred at a time on the viewer.I press one and it
blooms to fill the little screen with its memories.
I rub my head and wonder how long my hair will
grow.I have a silly but oddly frightening vision of
my hair growing so long it chokes me, filling the
helmet and the suit and cutting out the light, finally
asphyxiating me.I've heard that your hair goes on
growing after you die, and your nails too.I wonder
that - despite one or two of the photographs, and
their associated memories - I haven't felt sexually
aroused yet.
I curl up, foetal.I am a little naked planet of my
own, reduced to the primitive within my own stale
envelope of gas.A tiny moonlet of this place, on a
very low, slow, erratic orbit.
What am I doing here?
It's as if I drifted into this situation.I didn't ever
think about fighting or doing anything risky at all,
not until the war came along.I agreed it was
necessary, but that seemed obvious; everybody
thought so, everybody I knew, anyway.And
volunteering, agreeing to take part; that too seemed
natural.I knew I might die, but I was prepared to
risk that; it was almost romantic.Somehow it never
occurred to me it might entail privation and
suffering.Am I as stupid as those throughout history
- those I've always despised and pitied - who've
marched off to war, heads full of noble notions and
expectations of easy glory, only to die screaming
and torn in the mud?
I thought I was different.I thought I knew what I
was doing.
'What are you thinking about?' the suit asks.
'Nothing.'
'Oh.'
'Why are you here?' I ask it. 'Why did you agree to come with me?'
The suit - officially as smart as me, and with
similar rights - could have gone its own way if it
wanted.It didn't have to come to war.
'Why shouldn't I come with you?'
'But what's in it for you?'
'What's in it for you ?'
'But I'm human; I can't help feeling like this.I want
to know what you think the machines' excuse is.'
'Oh, come on; you're a machine too.We're both
systems, we're both matter with sentience.What
makes you think we have more choice than you in
the way we think?Or that you have so little?We're
all programmed.We all have our inheritance.You
have rather more than us, and it's more chaotic,
that's all.'
There is a saying that we provide the machines
with an end, and they provide us with the means.I
have a fleeting impression the suit is about to trot
out this hoary adage.
'Do you really care what happens in the war?' I ask it.
'Of course,' it says, with what could almost be a
laugh in its voice.I lie back and scratch.I look at
the camera.
'I've got an idea,' I tell it. 'How about I find a very
bright picture and wave it about now, in the dark?'
'You can try it, if you want.' The suit doesn't sound