The State of the Art(17)

'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