Mars

Jamie thought his vision was blurring, but then the stinging made him realize that sweat was getting into his eyes. He blinked and rubbed his eyes with one hand, keeping a firm grip on the wheel with the other. The rover was churning along at a steady thirty klicks per hour, heading for the landslide that they had come down two days earlier.

Maybe we can make it before sundown, Jamie thought. If we can get all the way up the slope and onto the plain again before sundown, we can just keep going all night long. I’ll slow her down, of course, but the lights are good enough to keep us on the move. No need to stop for the night. We can even follow our own tracks, the tracks we made coming out here. If they haven’t been covered up by dust. If we can get to the top.

Co

"How’s it goin’?" Co

"So far so good."

"How far to the slide?"

Jamie gestured with his chin toward the map displayed in the control panel’s central screen. "Half an hour, maybe a little more."

"We got a shot at getting to the top in daylight, then."

"Yep."

"Good."

"How are the women doing?" Jamie asked.

"Ilona’s asleep. Joa

"Asleep? Or passed out?"

Co

"And what about you? How do you feel?"

"Like a piece of shit that’s been stomped on by a herd of elephants. How ’bout you?"

"Not much better. But this go-mobile is easy to drive. It’s almost relaxing."

"Just don’t fall asleep at the wheel."

"Not much traffic to worry about."

"Yeah, but some of the potholes in the road can swallow you up."

Despite Co

The ground seemed to be rising. At first Jamie did not notice it, but then he realized that their ride was getting bumpier.

"I think we’re almost… Hey! There it is!"

Through the canopy they saw the dark red slope of the ancient landslide rising off to their left like a stairway to heaven. The cliffs that towered before them were masked by the beautiful, gentle grade that ramped all the way up to the caprock and the plain that led back to their dome.

Co

"It’s okay. We’ll be up this slope and heading for home before the sun goes down."

The grade was studded with rocks and boulders. Jamie could not see the tracks they had made on their way down; the dust storm had covered even the deep ruts where the rover had gotten temporarily stuck in loose sand.

"Don’t get into that loose stuff again," Co

"Not if I can help it."

"Slow her down a little, but keep moving forward."

"Yeah."

The astronaut licked his lips. Jamie knew he wanted to take over, to drive the rover himself. Yet Co

"You’re doin’ fine," Co

Jamie skirted the edge of what looked to him like an old crater that had been partially filled in with sand. He turned around its flank, maneuvering past a boulder almost as big as the rover itself.

"Good. Good," Co

It all happened in slow motion. The rover was making steady progress up the slope. Jamie could feel the gritty, bumpy texture of the surface beneath its wheels transmitted through the steering column to his hands. He was perspiring heavily, sweat stinging his eyes, Co

Jamie felt the nose dip as if it had started down a steep incline. Automatically he leaned on the brakes, but the big blunt-nosed rover plowed into a lake of fine loose sand, throwing up a rust-red bow wave of dust that covered the canopy.

"Look out!" Co

As inexorably as fate, with all the slow-motion horror of a nightmare, the rover dug itself into the loose sand like a burrowing mole. Jamie felt the wheels churning uselessly, spi

"Stop! Stop everything!"

Jamie was already disengaging the wheel drives when Co

The rover slid to a stop. Jamie felt his heart thudding in his chest, heard its thunder in his ears. He looked across at Co

"I don’t think the rear module is in the stuff," Jamie said. "I’m going to try to put its wheels in reverse."

"Yeah. Maybe it can pull us out of this."

The generator whined and they could hear the faint screech of wheels spi

"We’re stuck," he said.

Co

SOL 38: SUNSET

Vosnesensky was the last one to be tested.

The Russian was in no mood for having a medic punch holes in his skin. Co

Not that the people in the dome were much better off. Toshima had suddenly collapsed at his workstation; they had had to carry him to his bunk. Patel, Naguib, even Abell and Mironov were not much good for anything except sitting around and moaning. Monique Bo

"And how do you feel, in general?" Dr. Yang asked as Vosnesensky sat on the little white stool in the infirmary.

The Russian glowered at her. "I have important work to do," he said. "We have a crisis…"

Yang was barely taller than Vosnesensky even though he was seated and she was standing. But she stopped him cold with a snap of her almond eyes.

"You will not be able to do anything about your crisis if your medical condition continues to worsen," she said. She did not raise her voice, but there was cold steel in her words. "Now please answer my questions and do as I tell you."

Vosnesensky glanced at Reed, who was leaning against the patient’s couch in the corner of the tiny infirmary. Reed seemed to be in good health, his face pink. At least that damned superior smile of his was gone; he was frowning with puzzled frustration.

"The sooner you cooperate the sooner we will be finished," Yang said.

Vosnesensky capitulated. "What must I do?"

"Roll up your left sleeve and tell me how you feel. Exactly how you feel."

The Russian pulled in a deep breath as he unbuttoned the cuff of his coverall sleeve. "I am weak, my legs ache, I have no appetite."

"Have you ever felt this way before?" Yang held a hypodermic syringe in one hand, its needle glinting in the overhead lights.