The Season Of Passage Part 37

'Do we have time?'

'We have time.' He took the laser and attached it to a hook on one of the pulleys they had originally used to lower the boat. He hoisted the weapon upward. 'The laser will be there when you reach the cave, but not before. If she's near, and she smiles at you with her teeth, blow her head off.'

Lauren didn't argue with him. Gary swatted her lightly on the b.u.t.t and she began to climb.

Pain. All she knew was pain. Mars not only had vampires; it had devils with red-hot pitchforks. They poked her left side every time she raised an arm, either arm. She existed in a universe where death would have been a pleasure. She tried not to breathe. She tried to think of green trees, blue skies, and blue lakes. She mastered each rung individually, playing every mind game she knew to block out her body. Finally she pulled herself over the edge of the cliff and into the cave. There she lay panting on the ground, swallowing another mouthful of blood.

'No sweat,' she told Gary.

He started up the ladder. Lauren rolled over and unhooked the laser from the pulley. She slipped the strap over her head. Gary was a distant flickering white dot. 'No sign of Jessica,' she said in her radio. 'How much time to Armageddon?'

'Fifteen minutes, twenty seconds. All the time in the world.'

'You're sure?'

'Yeah. We've nothing to worry about. This b.a.s.t.a.r.d planet...'

Gary didn't finish. Perhaps Mars had finally taken offense to his repeated swearing. Perhaps it was all just rotten coincidence. Olympus Mons shook its fist again.

The quake threw Lauren against the wall. She heard a surprised cry in her helmet, and then a dangerous silence. She sat up quickly, even before the shaking stopped, and crept to the edge.

'Gary?' She couldn't see his helmet light. 'Gary?'

Nothing to worry about.

'Gary!'

She heard a faint moan.

'Are you there, Gary? Please answer me if you can.'

'Still making house calls, Doc?'

'Gary! Where are you? I can't see your light.'

'I'm lying flat on my back on the boat. I fell. Was there another quake?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, no,' he muttered.

Tidal wave!

She raised the reception on her vocals. There it was - the far-off roar of a mountain of water cras.h.i.+ng from the bowels of the world.

'You've got to get up!' she cried. 'A wave's coming. Get on the ladder.'

'My arm's broken. I think the bone's gone through the skin. I know what you mean about pain, Doc'

'I'll come down and get you. Hold on.'

'No! That would be foolish. s.h.i.+ne the searchlight on me. I'll find the ladder.'

Lauren caught him in the beam. He rolled from his back onto his belly and crawled like a horse with polio. The thunder of the tsunami grew. 'Do hurry,' she whispered.

As Gary straightened and took hold of the ladder, she saw the gross disfigurement of his left arm. Below the elbow, it twisted away from his body at a thirty-degree angle, and hung useless. Yet he begun to climb nevertheless, in the way a small bug tries to climb a tall wall moments after being wounded by an old shoe. His progress was miserably slow at best.

'Is there anything I can do?' she asked a minute later, when he stopped on a rung and showed no sign of going on. The fury of the tidal wave was almost on them.

'Tell me I'm the most handsome astronaut in the solar system.'

'There's none like you, on any of the planets,' she said.

'Tell me you would have married me if I'd had a steady job.'

'I would marry you. I love you. Please hurry, Gary!'

'Yeah, I'm climbing to the top, babe.' He coughed. 'To the top.'

He moved up another couple of rungs, but then was forced to rest again. The wave was too fast for a cripple. Lauren watched as the water began to recede up the ca.n.a.l. Foam swelled in the black chasm.

'It's coming!' she cried.

'I know,' Gary said in resignation. He stood unmoving on the ladder. 'Get away from the edge, Lori.'

'I'm not leaving you!'

'The water could reach as high as you. Please move back. Under my bed, in a blue binder, I have extensive notes on the Hawk's controls. Read them carefully. You're going home, Lori.'

Within the narrow area of visibility created by the searchlight anch.o.r.ed at the edge of the cliff, a white-maned monster swelled. The ground beneath Lauren's feet shook and instinctively she found herself turning and fleeing up the cave.

'Gary!' she screamed.

'I'm thinking of you, Lori,' he said.

Lauren was two dozen strides into the cave when a thick hand of compressed air slapped her on the back and knocked her to the floor. An invisible hurricane of noise and wind and rain swept around her.

Then there was a deadly hush. The wave had pa.s.sed.

'Gary?' she said. 'Gary?'

There was no answer. Of course there was no answer.

Lauren stumbled back toward the edge and began to weep, the tears draining the last few drops of moisture from her parched system, was.h.i.+ng over a hard lump inside that she knew would never dissolve, not even if she cried to the end of time. She reached the edge and found the searchlight shattered. All was dark. All was silent. She could see nothing. There was nothing. Gary was dead.

'The most handsome astronaut in the whole solar system,' she said, and sniffed. 'But I wish you had been a librarian.'

Alone. Forever alone. Or so she thought.

Mars had not finished with her yet.

There were footsteps behind her, loud footsteps. Lauren whirled and reached for the laser. She could see nothing, but she heard a voice, another ghost in the never-ending nightmare.

'Lauren,' it said.

TWENTY-NINE.

'Jessie?' Lauren whispered. The outline of someone or something moved toward her. It was only an outline. The voice that had spoken her name sounded devoid of life. Lauren aimed the laser. 'Tell me if that's you. Jessie?'

The shadow paused. 'It's me, Lauren.'

It was Jessica. Lauren felt no relief. Jessica sounded like a zombie. Lauren braced herself against the wall, the long black drop to the ca.n.a.l only a foot to her left. Lauren had come down into the dark to save Jessica, but she swore if Jessica so much as winked at her funny she would blow her in two.

Eight minutes to detonation.

Lauren knew she was dead. But there were worse things - such as welcoming the third expedition.

'Jessie,' Lauren said. 'I want you to stay where you are. You are not to come any closer.'

'Has something happened, Lauren?'

Jessica's voice remained flat and monotone, but now Lauren hesitated. Jessica had been incoherent following Jim's death. Maybe she was merely in shock now, induced by only G.o.d knew what had happened to her in the pit. Jessica took a step closer.

'Don't move!' Lauren ordered. 'Stay where you are.'

Jessica halted. 'Is that a gun?'

'Yes.'

"They don't work.'

'This one does.'

Jessica considered the answer for ages. 'I want to talk to you.'

'We can talk,' Lauren said. 'I'd like to talk. What have you been doing since I saw you last?'

'I was with Bill. You know. Have you seen Bill?'

'No.'

'But I left him...' Jessica didn't finish.

'Why did you leave? Did you take Hummingbird?

'I wanted to be with you, Lauren. You and Gary. Where is Gary?'

'He's dead.'

'Oh,' Jessica said, as if she had just been told who had won the 1992 World Series. She stepped toward Lauren once more.

'Stay!' Lauren commanded. Jessica ignored her. She walked to the edge of the cliff, on the opposite side of the cave from Lauren, to where the tips of her boots poked out over the ca.n.a.l. She looked in the direction of the invisible island.

'Do you know where Bill is?' Jessica asked. 'I have to talk to him.'

'I don't know where he is.'

Jessica stiffened. She appeared to come out of her trance. 'How come you didn't bring him back with you?'

Lauren had no answer. Jessica took a large step closer.

'Where is he?' Jessica demanded.

'Stay where you are!'

'What have you done with him?'

'Stay,' Lauren said. She had to see Jessica's eyes, without actually looking into them. Their eyes were always weird.

But Jessica had her helmet light off, which was not an encouraging sign.

How could she possibly see in the dark? She must be one of them.

'Did you kill him?' Jessica asked bitterly.

'Listen to me, Jessie. Things have changed. Gary's dead. Jim's dead. Do you understand me? Please tell me that you do. Bill's changed.'

Lauren stopped. Jessica was smiling now, back on cloud nine. Her mouth was open and Lauren could see her teeth. They looked bigger, Lauren was pretty sure they did.

Jessica sighed with pleasure. 'He's changed, yes. He's been sweet to me, like old times. He came to me last night, while I was sleeping. I invited him into me.'

Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will! Bill must have been in their room last night. But that was impossible. Lauren knew she hadn't fallen asleep, even for a minute. Then she remembered that Jessica had risen briefly in the night to use the restroom. Bill must have got her then.

'What did he do to you?' Lauren asked. She was a f.u.c.king astronaut; she didn't need to hear s.h.i.+t like this. G.o.d, she felt like throwing up. Jessica smiled and touched her suit near the neck.

'A little pinch and then, sweet,' Jessica said. 'He said it would be warm and sweet.' She nodded. 'My Mom told me to save it for one man, and I did. I saved it for Bill.'

Lauren s.h.i.+fted her helmet - and the light on top of it -and strained to get a better picture of Jessica. Her old friend winced as the light crossed her face, and moved aside. But before she did, Lauren thought she saw a messy red mark on Jessica's throat.

/ don't need this s.h.i.+t, I really don't.

'What did he do to you?' Lauren whispered.