He returns to the spacesuit. They have left it here for a reason. He puts it on. It’s hard and slow without help, but he finally manages to get it hooked up. He flips on the PLSS and checks the readout. It’s functional, but just as he left it — with maybe ten minutes of air at most left in the tank. He snaps his helmet on, walks up to the doors and pushes on them as hard as he can with both hands.
With a click, they swing open. He hears a rushing sound as air in the Martian chamber is sucked through the doorway, open now to utter blackness. The air takes him along for the ride as it’s sucked from the chamber. It feels like Mars itself is venting him into space.
He surrenders to the force and floats into the darkness, feels himself catapulting end over end. The light of his exit point revolves in and out of his field of vision, gradually getting smaller and smaller as his rotations begin to increase. Eventually the dot passing his visor travels so quickly it becomes a thin line. Dimly, he wonders how he can be tumbling so quickly and yet still remain conscious.
Then the line disappears altogether and he finds himself engulfed in utter blackness. He takes a deep breath and slowly exhales, trying to calm himself down. Strangely, he no longer has any sense of movement. He takes another breath and then another, expecting each one to be his last.
“Can anybody hear me? This is Colonel Frank Borman.”
He breathes again, wondering briefly if undergoing the Ritual of Elements might have better prepared him for this moment.
Then time starts to fracture. There is a blinding flash of light, and he sees himself a short distance ahead — the back of his own spacesuit. This moment is familiar, but it’s over in a flash. He sees himself disappear.
Once more, he is all alone. Back inside the Monument on Phobos.
44
The blast of air at his back ceases. He turns to see the doorway through which he just arrived has disappeared without trace. All he sees now is his own reflection on the inner wall of the Monument chamber. The chamber as it was when he first entered. Meaning, he hopes, he is back in his own universe.
He checks his air again. Eight minutes left.
The walls of the chamber are glassy and opaque. They don’t allow him to see outside. He starts to move, but forgets about the zero gravity. He immediately starts somersaulting end on end toward the ceiling, and it feels like history repeating. He hits ass first, bouncing forward and down uncontrollably. He’s forced to reach out desperately to stop his helmet taking the full impact with the floor of the chamber.
As his gloves touch the ground, instinctively he claws for a hand hold. Instead, he finds his arms splaying out sideways by his own mass and momentum. He bounces, but only a short distance. He’s about three feet in the air and slowly pulls his knees toward his chest. It shifts his center of gravity and turns him toward the vertical, allowing him to extend his legs again so they reach the floor. He inches his way forward, taking the smallest of steps toward the face of the Monument that he believes will offer him the way out.
He can only hope the Monument functions in the same way in both dimensions. He has no idea whether the same structure exists simultaneously in both worlds, or if they are two separate structures somehow interconnected. Did they build it from their side of the dimensional divide, or was it their final act before departing this universe? He should have asked more questions, and wishes now he had a camera. But beyond all else, what he needs is to find a way to get home.
He does the only thing that makes sense; he tells the Monument what he wants. “I need to get out of here.” The same words that opened an exit on the Martian side. It does the trick. The Monument hears him. By his command, an exit opens through the wall in front of him, revealing once more the surface of the Martian moon, as it was when he first arrived.
He steps outside to find the moon once more whole, in close orbit around a barren red planet Mars.
There is a bright light at the end of the dusty walkway. Ningal’s spacecraft, awaiting his return. He realizes she’s been here all along, cloaking the ship to ensure he would see the Monument as his only hope of survival. Manipulating him.
He stares at her ship, but stands his ground. He’s not going to her now. He’s done her bidding, but he no longer trusts her to do his.
She knows. He can feel it. She’s calling him to her. It’s almost like he can hear her inside his head. And he wants to go. He’s drawn to her. Part of him feels ashamed of it, like she’s a forbidden pleasure. The other woman. But it’s not as simple as that. Her allure has hooked him at a spiritual level. She is a higher power made flesh. In every sense of the word, a goddess. Thousands of years ago, human beings bowed down to her in worship. The Ryl accepted that devotion as justified, like any creator would.
But the Ryl are merely part of a food chain. The next rung in the ladder. No matter what role they played in the birth of modern man, Ningal is no more god than he is. Though every fiber of his being yearns for her presence, he fears he must stay away from her at all costs. Like any bad habit, the only way to kick it is abstinence. Cold turkey.
But his feet won’t move. His air won’t last much longer; he needs to decide. Go to her and live, or stay here and die. It doesn’t seem like much of a choice. But something is eating away at the back of his head, a dim recollection of a third option.
This is ridiculous. He’s not going to stand here and die. She used him, so what? Two can play at that game. He starts walking toward the ship. He has maybe four minutes of air left. The ship is a good 400 feet away. About the length of a football field. He’ll be cutting it very close. He starts to move as quickly as he dares. Every step he takes toward her feels like a betrayal. But time is his greatest enemy now. His steps grow larger, each one taking him higher and higher in the air until eventually he finds himself floating for so long that he fears he has taken one leap to many and lost touch with the moon’s surface.
The Ryl ship is almost directly below him, yet he has no way to get to it. He hangs in space, helpless. Frustrated. Angry at himself for doing something so stupid. He wonders whether holding his breath would do any good, but his heart is beating so fast he eventually figures the effort would be futile.
Then the ship seems to move a bit closer. She must be coming for him. Thank God. But why so slowly? He checks again. Two minutes of air. Maybe a minute or two more of labored breathing as he’s forced to suck in the last of his exhalations. But it’s not the ship that’s moving, it’s him. The shadowed, pock-marked surface of Phobos is also getting closer — he’s falling, just incredibly slowly. He tries not to panic, which is difficult because he has no control. All he can do is wait and try not to breathe the last of his air.
Which is when he remembers his alternative exit plan: the emergency beacon given to him by Donald Menzel (the real Menzel). He unzips a pocket on the front of his suit and reaches inside. At first, he feels nothing. It’s hard to feel anything through his gloves, but he knows it’s there. Eventually his fingers grab it by the edges. He pulls it out.
A locator disc: the same technology used by Menzel aboard the USS Yorktown to fold space and transport them from one side of the world to another. He remembers it’s like stepping through a doorway. Borman squeezes the two faces of the disc between his thumb and forefinger as hard as he can.
Nothing happens.
Less than a minute of air left. He’s very close to the ground now. His feet are only inches above the lunar dust. He examines the disc, wondering why it hasn’t worked. Probably something he’s not doing right, but he has no time to second guess. He feels his boots touch down. Back to Plan A.
He tosses the disc down into the dust in frustration. The open hatch of Ningal’s ship is right in front of him now, just a few feet away. He can’t see her, but he knows she’s there, standing just on the other side of the vortex dividing her inside world from the vacuum of space. Waiting for him, arms open. Frustrated and determined not to inadvertently launch himself into space again, he instead makes one final, desperate lunge toward the ship, aiming to get himself through the hatch in one jump.