"Holy Mother of God!"
The words slipped unbidden from Richardson's lips into the open mike of her carrier. It occurred to the major that, whatever nominal allegiance they all owed to Marxist doctrine, by some coincidence each of her team, even the black American colonel and the Russian geologist (whose grandparents, in an earlier ambience of glasnost, had partaken of a sanctioned Orthodox revival) had been brought up Catholic.
"5023 Eris does appear rather impressive, does she not, for all that she is a very small asteroid," Kamanov responded with a grin, "and a somewhat minor deity."
"Belay that chatter!" Gutierrez interrupted from the flagship, unable to avoid nautical jargon even at a time like this. "Keep the frequency clear!" More than merely cost, it was security that had precluded television. The only eyes following this expedition for mankind as a whole were those of the KGB.
"Quite so." Empleado sounded no nearer to the major than the general. "How unfortunate were it a religious oath that were the first words relayed to the United Peoples of the World Soviet."
"Not to mention," Kamanov suggested, "your many and varied superiors, Comrade Political Officer?"
In the privacy of her helmet, the major smiled. The Russian had raised a sore and complex point. Marxism's first century had been notable for its undisguised hostility toward religion which, despite an official easing of positions, still colored Eastern attitudes. You were free to believe what you liked without sanction, even manifest your belief openly, but never expect to rise in the bureaucracy if you exercised that freedom. In the West, with the Savior born again to lead the revolution, the situation differed. Representing an organization ostensibly subordinate to Moscow, Empleado must reflect that hierarchy's policy. A member of KGB America, he must act on principles diametrically opposed. It was what came of serving too many masters at once, she thought, and no more than he deserved.
Bereft of moral support from his "corporals four," Empleado refused Kamanov the dignity of an answer, which was how he usually played it anyway. At less than a meter's distance, the peculiar surface of 5023 Eris loomed before them like a wall, curvature unnoticed, the evidence of their senses in dire conflict. Eyes told them they were about to take an endless plunge down its flat, featureless face. Bodies, long since adjusted to the sensations of free fall, told them no such thing. Even worse, the wall appeared (and perhaps was) every bit as slick as their polished visors, affording not the slightest hand- or foothold.
"Doctor—" the major's part was to pretend to ignore the byplay between Kamanov and Empleado, civilian loyalty and discipline being the concern of the KGB, not the Marines "—if you'd assist?"
They'd anticipated difficulty and were prepared. Swimming closer to what appeared a boundless palisade of yellow-green plastic, Reille y Sanchez drew a five-centimeter steel ring from a Kevlar bag. Made from half-centimeter stock welded to a seven-centimeter steel disk, a dozen of these makeshifts had been fabricated in a sparse facility inboard the McCain by a grumbling machinist, when their instruments began giving them foreboding hints about the real nature of their destination. The major let the reaction pistol drift on the long plastic tube which fed gas from her backpack. Peeling a thin, circular polyethylene cover from the underside of the disk, she exposed a surface coated with a descendant of cyanoacrylic "crazy" glue. Extending her arm, she placed the disk in contact with the asteroid's glossy surface. Within heartbeats, nothing short of explosives might have removed it.
Kamanov, floating beside her, spring-latched a plastic hook into the ring and shook out paired nylon lines attached to it. Reille y Sanchez reclaimed the reaction pistol, pressed the trigger, and let it pull her a few meters to the left. Kamanov remained where he was. The slender lines slipped through her gloved fingers until she reached the spot, indicated by the tautness of the lines, where she intended anchoring a second adhesive piton.
That task accomplished and the free ends of the lines snapped into place, the major hung parallel to the surface as Richardson pulled closer on the single line to which they were all attached, seized an anchored line in each hand, brought her knees to her chin and performed an awkward somersault, pressing her booted feet against the asteroid and standing "up," held "down" by the lines.
The vice-commander was followed by Empleado, requiring assistance from both women, and afterward by the major. For a moment, Reille y Sanchez stood where she'd alighted, struggling against warnings from her kinesthetic sense to reorient herself, to see herself standing on the surface of a planet, looking up at a trio of winged spaceships hanging a kilometer overhead. As she knew it would, something readjusted itself inside her head with a mental pop! She was aware of watching Kamanov, a hand wrapped around each line, shuffling toward them from the other end of the odd catwalk they'd just built.
With Empleado's more-or-less useless help—they could all hear the man's labored breathing, and his helmet visor had begun to opaque with condensation—the colonel attached a scrap of colored fabric to one line: red, white, blue, and yellow. "I claim this world," she announced to her comrades and the universe, "for humankind, on behalf of American Soviet Socialism and the United World Soviet!"
"We copy that, EVA team, and are relaying it back to Earth," Gutierrez informed them, "America, and, uh, the United World Soviet, have landed on 5023 Eris!"
During this ragtag bit of ceremony, the major searched within herself for a feeling of achievement, finding only weary awareness of how much still had to be accomplished during this EVA. It was more than possible, should they fail to produce results, should some disaster, foreseen or unforeseen, befall them, that "humankind" would never hear those words. The expedition was being conducted in secrecy rivaling that enshrouding pre-Soviet American development of the atomic bomb. It wouldn't be reported until some spectacular discovery or success could be reported with it. Earth was poor and hungry, much of its populace homeless and hopeless. While its present rulers were less responsive to public pressure than the state which had constructed the shuttles, it would nevertheless be prudent to justify the enormous expenditure this undertaking represented before announcing that such an expenditure had been made.
The major's companions relaxed a bit, marking a conclusion. The next item on their agenda was a secure mooring for the three space vehicles themselves, each the size of an airliner. Detailed radar survey, as the expedition approached 5023 Eris, had informed them that the asteroid's composition, whatever unknown circumstances had created it, was more or less uniform. Under a polymerized surface only centimeters deep lay a radio-opaque core, presumably of accreted metal and hydrocarbons. It made slight difference where they attached their docking equipment.
A dozen words from Gutierrez, and an orange flash from the air lock of the Hatch—an atmosphere would have conveyed the dull boom of gunfire—warned the major that those inboard were ready for the next stage. In a long moment, during which she watched several spacesuited forms around the Hatch's engine-mounted tail, another nylon line drifted into view, its many kinks elongating until they disappeared, propelled by a huge-bored Webley line-throwing gun at a tangent to the asteroid's surface.
"Got it!" Richardson, who happened to be nearest, caught the line as it snaked between the pitons they'd secured. She handed it to the major, who tucked an end through the ring behind her. Reille y Sanchez pulled, a clumsy Empleado winding slack around his hand and elbow, until a heavier line jerked into view.
"Easy," Reille y Sanchez shouted to no one in particular. "Keep it taut! That thing weighs enough, even out here, to break bones!"
The latter line, like those of the makeshift catwalk, was also paired, consisting of a doubled-over single length of nylon passing through a steel-and-plastic pulley which could be clipped to a ring. Seemingly of its own accord, the wheel began turning. Soon, attached to one side of the line like someone's washing, a bulky cargo hove into view. Shouting instructions into her mike, the major guided the object to a safe landing. Except for its size—the base of the device was a meter in diameter—it was identical in every respect to the pitons they'd just glued to the asteroid's surface, fabricated by the same man, by the same means.
Not trusting Empleado, the major summoned Kamanov to hold it while she peeled off the protective sheeting. Together they placed it two meters from the second of the smaller rings, at right angles to the nylon catwalk, waiting for the cyanoacrylate to set.
"One down, my dear major," the geologist sighed wearily, "and too many more to go!"
Unclipping the pulley and retracing Kamanov's steps, they squeezed past the colonel and the sweating KGB officer, approached the first piton, snapped the pulley on, and took delivery of a second giant attachment. In minutes, they'd glued it on a line paralleling the smaller devices. A third parcel was the concern of Richardson and her dubious assistant, a trestle-base like a miniature, truncated Eiffel Tower, to be set between the two giant rings. The major and the geologist had their own task, but kept an eye on the operation as they lifted their feet, reversed positions relative to the asteroid and, not without trepidation, let the reaction pistol pull them up the face of 5023 Eris toward a new location. There they anchored a small ring, received the pulley via the line attaching them to the other explorers, and hauled in a third large ring from the Hatch. This and the initial large ring would anchor a second shuttle. The first and second rings would hold the first spacecraft that landed.
It was when they'd floated over the catwalk, to a point on the opposite side where they intended to prepare a berth for the third shuttle, that they ran into trouble. As Reille y Sanchez placed the last small ring, it sank into the solid-looking surface, taking her thumb and fingers with it. Without a sound, without thinking, she tried to withdraw her fingers, which were caught fast, dragging herself down until her helmet bobbed within a centimeter of the surface.
She let the reaction pistol float and extended her other hand to stop herself. It, too, sank in, and her helmet made contact. The spherical transparency before her face met the surface over a sharp-edged circular area the color and consistency of butterscotch pudding.
Now, she screamed. At the slightest motion, she sank deeper and deeper, drawn by what force, she didn't know. She could no longer turn her head, could see nothing but the uniform, grainy color of the surface material. Short of breath despite an ample oxygen supply, she felt Kamanov's hand on her, tugging at her life-support backpack. She presumed he'd snatched her reaction pistol, their one hope, and was firing it away from the asteroid. If so, it was without effect. Whatever energy acted on her, it was many times stronger than that minuscule thrust.
"I fear it is too late, Estrellita," exclaimed the Russian, using her first name for the first time in the three years they'd known each other, "I have become stuck, as well, at the elbow. Try to relax. Breathe evenly. I can see the shuttles. I have the pulley in my hand. I believe they intend to pull us up with the Hatch's reaction motors."
By now, her helmet was half-imbedded in the treacherous wall. Light around her face grew dimmer. Whatever the shuttle was doing, it made no difference. She felt strain where Kamanov gripped her suit. Breathe evenly, he'd advised. In her phones, she heard the geologist's breath coming in shorter, more painful-sounding gasps. The pull between shuttle and asteroid must be terrific, his merely human body part of the linkage. At the moment, however, she was more concerned about a drop in her suit pressure, an ominous hiss from the vicinity of her helmet collar.
"No good, Doc!" It was the Hatch. "We're slacking off! Looks like the ship was being pulled in with you!"
Kamanov remained silent, releasing a lungful of air. "Thank you, Hatch. I confess your slacking off is something of a relief."
"Roger that. Your suits'll keep you going a while. We'll get you out!"
"Estrellita," Kamanov squeezed her shoulder, "did you hear?"
It was now dark. She took a breath. "Yes, Piotr, I heard. I can't see a thing, and I think my suit's leaking."
A long pause was followed by a sigh. "It is an ill wind which blows no good to anyone. You need not worry about your suit, you are now covered with the surface material. As for myself, I shan't be able to see much longer. I have kept my face clear until now, but I believe I dislocated my shoulder when the Hatch attempted to pull us out. Looking back is a strain. The Hatch has performed an OMS burn, and resumed its original station."
"Running out on us, the rats!"
The geologist chuckled. "Precisely."
The major shook her head inside her helmet, drops of perspiration burning in her eyes. Not being able to see the muck she was imbedded in was much better. She began calming down. "And to think we left Earth and came two hundred million klicks to die in quicksand."
"Hush," Kamanov's answer was gentle. "Do not say it, even—especially if it is true. The Commodore will dig us out, somehow."
"Richardson and Empleado," she struggled to remain conversational. "Did they—" She stiffened. "Piotr, I can see light! It's brightening up in here! I don't know what it means, but . . ."
"Yes," the scientist asked her, "what is happening?"
"My helmet's broken through, like coming up through muddy water! The radar was wrong, Piotr! Underneath this epoxy or whatever, it's—"
"What is it?"
"It's hollow, and we've got company! Weird company!"
The major didn't exaggerate, as she knew he'd soon see for himself. The asteroid coating must be radio-opaque, for it was no more than centimeters thick. Two or three meters before her—below her, thinking of the asteroid's center as "down"—was another wall, or floor, of the plastic-covered mesh lawn furniture used to be made of, the open spaces between the wires not quite large enough for an ungloved fist.
This wasn't what had seized and held her attention. Between her and the wall half a dozen creatures were anchored by their feet (or whatever they stood on) so it appeared she looked down on them from above. The little rural Texas girl inside her squirmed. They looked, more than anything else, like giant golden-brown cockroaches. Cockroaches her own size. Cockroaches with gun belts and guns pointed at her.
Another being caught her astonished eye, smaller, of more slender build, apparently unclothed, but covered from head to foot either with soft scales fringed at the edges, or stubby feathers. Like the insect-things, it wore a weapons belt, although whatever device it carried there remained holstered. The creature lay supine on the mesh, she knew somehow, as a courtesy, that she might examine it full length. It raised a "hand," fingers spread to display translucent webbing, and spoke to her in Spanish over her suit radio.
"A good afternoon to you, Major Reille y Sanchez. Or perhaps I may be privileged to address you as `Estrellita,' a most charming and beautiful name. Welcome to what you call `Fifty-Twenty-Three Eris.' I'm Aelbraugh Pritsch, administrative assistant to the Proprietor. As you've no doubt surmised by now, you and your party were expected."