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Chapter 43

A.J. watched Madeline for the signal. The cable was now wound multiple times around a massive section of the nearby outcropping, with the other end connected to Thoat's powerful electric winch. It had taken Madeline most of a day to figure out exactly how she wanted to blow the side of the lander, using some of the explosives they'd brought in case they needed them for excavating the ruins at Target

37. Everyone had been more than a little nervous—even Madeline, he suspected—when the charge was blown, but when the smoke cleared a large chunk had been taken out of the side of John Carter but virtually everything inside was untouched. Now, with the help of the winch, A.J. thought they could get Thoat out.

Madeline waved. "All set, A.J."

A.J. was acting as a spotter, observer, and advisor for Bruce. The Australian pilot was their best choice for driving Thoat, having practiced with it both in simulation and back on Earth. But this was going to be tricky even for someone with his experience. Thoat would emerge from the bay with over three meters of free drop beneath, and a heavily inclined surface of rock that could easily tip the rover if things got sticky. They had tried to use wreckage to make a ramp, but even in the one-third gravity Joe was uncertain about how well it would hold. And then, even if it did, there would still be the steep run down the huge inclined ridge before Thoat reached reasonably level ground.

If they could have set the winch cable on something towards the top of the ridge, that would have been better, but nothing on top provided reasonable purchase. However, if Thoat could survive the first few dozen yards down, it would pass the outcropping to which the winch cable was attached. From then on, it would be able to use the winch to slow itself down the rest of the way. Bruce had walked the route several times, visualizing the moves he'd have to make.

"Okay, everyone, make sure you're well clear. If anything goes wrong you'll want to be far, far away."

"Understood." Madeline and the others moved to the far side of the main ridge.

"Everyone's clear, Bruce. The cable's fastened. Snug it up."

The winch turned slowly, until increasing tension made the rover quiver. "Stop! You got it. Now, I'm trying to program the thing to keep the tension constant."

"Don't get too fancy on me, A.J. I don't need your gadget to yank on me at the wrong time. Maybe I should do the controlling."

"Do you think you can do it well enough along with all the other stuff you'll have to do?"

There was a moment's pause. "Blowed if I know for sure, but I guess you might have a point. Just make sure that it won't be pulling me if it's sideways on, right?"

"Got you. Limit of angular deflection. All right, whenever you're ready."

The thin air didn't transmit much sound, but a faint whine and rumble could be heard from Thoat. With a lurch, the rover moved up and forward, eating cable as it progressed steadily up the slope. "Keep coming, keep coming . . . almost to the edge . . . another few . . ."

Bruce gunned the engine and manually overrode the steady pressure of the winch, giving it a momentary full-strength pull. Thoat popped up out of its former prison. The front two pairs of wheels smashed down onto the inclined stone, while the rear wheels dropped with a ponderous crunch onto the makeshift ramp.

Which promptly shattered and collapsed.

Thoat slewed sideways and skidded, nearly tipping, as Bruce fought for control. The independently suspended wheels spun, trying to keep a grip, as the rover staggered drunkenly down the rocks. A.J.'s program had cut out completely as there was no predicting the angle at which Thoat might be.

The rover almost plummeted past the rock where the winch cable was attached, and at that point Bruce hit the winch controls again. The winch screamed protest at the abuse it was suddenly being asked to take, but the composite-metal cable held well. Thoat slowed and stopped, and then, carefully, began to make a rear-first descent down the steep slope.

A few moments later, the rover was on level ground. "Cooo-eeee! Now that was a ride, blokes!"

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," Madeline said dryly. "Let's hope we don't have to experience it again, however."

"No worries, once was enough. Let's get moving, shall we?"

"Shut her down for now. We want to load all the equipment we possibly can into her now."

"Right."

About two hours later, the last of the equipment that had not already been in Thoat was finally stowed. Then Rich turned to the others. "It's . . . time."

Helen nodded. "We probably won't be coming back this way, at least not for quite a while. And there's no point in bringing him with us."

The rocky soil was not tremendously hard-packed, and they had excavation tools already. Digging a hole did not take long.

"Do you want to say a few words, Rich?"

Skibow stood at the edge of the grave, looking down at the body. "Ryu Sakai was a good scientist and an even better friend. I'd known him since he was a visiting student at my university. I remember he once insisted that I try out for one of the musicals they had at the college, a production of Little Shop of Horrors. I got the part of the dentist and he got the part of Audrey II, the plant. That surprised me— all of us in the cast—because none of us had known what a good singing voice he had."

Skibow cleared his throat. "Ryu was always that way. One minute, looking like a professor and insisting on proper protocol; then, the next, startling you with some joke or new skill you had no idea he had. He used to do sleight of hand tricks in class . . ." Rich trailed off, then continued: "But he was always focused in the end on his career. That's why he was here, because there was never any question about following any path he could get to the other worlds he'd studied by remote. Ryu Sakai would have rather lived, of course. But he would also be honored to be the first man buried on another world. And he wouldn't want to hold us back."

He choked suddenly, then cut it off, sniffed back tears, and nodded. "He'd give us his blessing, I think."

"He certainly would, Rich," Jane's voice came softly. She'd been following the informal service from orbit. "He'd say: 'Saa, let us waste no more time or fuel on me. I am no longer in need of it.'"

Rich's reaction was part laugh, part sob. "Yes. Yes, Jane, he would. And thank you for reminding me. So. Rest well, Ryu Sakai, under the sky and soil of Mars."

The others bowed their heads and waited a few moments. Then Rich picked up his shovel and began to fill in the grave. A few minutes later, it was done.

"And he has a hell of a tombstone," A.J. pointed out. "No one's moving John Carter from where it sits."

"No, I don't think they will," Helen said quietly. Then, shifting to a businesslike tone: "All right—everyone aboard. We're moving out."

That command necessitated first getting someone—Madeline, as it turned out—to load Joe in. She did it herself, to everyone's surprise—and Joe's voluble protest.

"Hey, be careful! You'll hurt yourself!"

"Don't be silly. In this gravity, you barely weigh seventy pounds."

The security specialist was such a small and very feminine-looking woman that people tended to forget how strong she was. The only one who didn't looked surprised was A.J.

Helen had to stifle a smile. His memories, of course, were considerably more vivid.

Once Joe was comfortably strapped in, the others quickly entered. To Helen's relief, Thoat's interior proved to be much less cramped than she'd feared. When she said as much, Joe shook his head.

"Rover's probably too humdrum a term. Don't forget that Thoat was designed as a long-term Mars exploration vehicle. That means it isn't just a sort of planetary bus, but has to have living facilities aboard. It was by far the largest piece of equipment we brought with us from Earth, except for the SSTO."

Bruce verified the pressure was back up. The others lost no time in removing their helmets and suits.

"Cleanup is definitely the order of the day," Madeline said, moving to the rear. After a quick inspection of the sanitary facilities, she announced: "Well, it's adequate. But I miss our cabins more every minute."

"Too right," Bruce said. "But I'm in favor of anything that'll let us get a bit cleaner after more than two days in those glorified body stockings."

As Bruce set the rover in motion, following the path marked out clearly on the Thoat's HUD, the others took turns using the miniature minimum-water cleaning facilities, and emptying the sanitary reservoirs of their suits into Thoat's recycler.

"God, that feels good," Helen said, coming out last. "I know these are top-notch suits, but—"

"We're all agreed on the 'but,'" Madeline said firmly. "I also think that sentence works best unfinished."

"Amen," Rich concurred.

Joe had presented a problem, since his suit was also his splint. However, Madeline had been able to improvise a temporary splint; Joe held his leg carefully still while A.J. released the suit, Madeline applied the temporary, and then helped him remove the suit.

"A.J., maybe I should just leave that on?"

"Can't hurt. We'll probably have to be getting you in and out of your suit quite a few times over the next few weeks."

Madeline nodded. "I agree. We'll just have to make sure it fits right, and keep a close eye on it for a while."

Independent, wide, tall tires made Thoat a relatively smooth ride, given the rocky terrain they had to cross. The lesser gravity helped also, of course. Still, jolts were inevitable, and Joe was heard to curse more than once.

"Sorry, mate," Bruce apologized, after one especially big jolt. "Even with the best route there's still a bloody awful lot of rocks around."

"I'm going to put in a protest to the Martian Department of Transportation. The roads here are just terrible."

"Hey, they kept shooting us down before," A.J. pointed out wisely. "What makes you think they care?"

"Well, they better get used to it. It's payback for what they did to England back in the 1890s."

Ignoring the byplay, Helen sat down near Bruce. "How long until we get to Pirate?"

"Rate we're going? Say around ten in the morning tomorrow, local time. I'm not pushing the girl over five KPH, even now while I can see well. It's going to be pitch dark out there when the sun sets, which is looking to be in a couple of hours."

"Now that you've had a bit of experience with the terrain, do you think we'll make it before the fuel runs out?"

Bruce shrugged, the motion visible though muted by the suit. "It's dicey. We're going to be right on the edge of our range. All we can do is hope."

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Framed