The whole rock looked to Minnie like pics she’d seen of the Utah desert, and it probably would’ve been even more reminiscent a thousand years ago, before the Hynka decided to make it their own. No doubt the stone on this side had not always been so pale. Like a seabird flock’s favorite offshore rock, the tiers of formerly red sandstone had been bleached white by years of defilement—Hynka blood sheeting down the steps like a gory fountain, or some bizarre “water” feature one might find outside the HQ of the International Milk Farmers Association.
As she imagined the grisly ceremonies that must occur here, something caught Minnie’s eye above the bleached layers. On the rocky outcropping, between the highest tier and the peak, Minnie found Ish.
2.0
EV4’s stabilizer legs deployed as the sphere descended slowly toward a vast, featureless plain. Thomas Meier held his breath as he watched the altimeter count down, awaiting the jarring thud of surface contact. Through the porthole above, a mostly clear violet sky implied a beautiful Threck Country day awaited them, though sensors had warned of gusty wind in the projected landing zone.
On the panel before him, a virtual Evacuation Vehicle graphic met the ground’s jagged line a few seconds before he felt anything. For an instant, it seemed they’d stopped moving, but then the EV grazed the surface, tilting and wobbling for a few seconds as it bounced and drifted several more meters, then skidded to a stop. Silence followed, emphasizing the eerie, almost sickening sensation of zero motion.
Concerned about the wind and the EV toppling if he retracted the chute, Tom instead hit the chute release. A muffled ch-kck overhead signaled its successful detachment, and he turned his head left to see Angela’s stunned face. Eyes alert and guarded, her mouth hung open in a frozen smile. They sat there, still, for nearly a minute.
Angela’s hushed voice in Tom’s helmet broke the silence.
“Strewth… We’re actually alive.”
“For the moment,” he replied with grim earnest. A line from Outpost Iota. “Let’s see if there’s anything outside that wants to eat us.”
She glared at him and lifted her visor. He did the same and began disconnecting his helmet.
“You hole!” She backhanded his chest. “We lived! You can’t just celebrate that? Or at least let me celebrate it for more than a second?”
Tom sighed and put his hand on her knee. “Honey… shut up. That was a quote. And an awesome one at that. Victor Kant. Such a bad ass. But yeah, I wasn’t serious. What I’d like to verify is that there’s nothing that wants to eat me.” He winked and unfastened his restraints.
She pulled off her helmet. “I’m so kicking your ass when we’re settled.”
“I love you?” he said in an apologetic singsong.
They leaned close and embraced, both squeezing a bit more firmly than the other had expected. Tom planted his nose into her hair and inhaled.
She pushed him back. “No way. Don’t smell me right now. Five days of funk layered up on this nasty body.”
“I enjoy your nasty body.” A spot-on impression of Welsh actor Vale Bevan, if Tom said so himself.
He set the pod to begin equalizing with the outside air as he and Angela opened their surface survival kit’s to resume evac procedures. Tom clipped the holster onto his suit and pulled his multiweapon from its case. He held it out by the grip, pointing the business end up.
“A man and his gun,” he said.
Angela glanced at him and laughed. “So sexy.”
Tom lifted an amorous eyebrow. “You want another go before we disembark for the rest of our natural lives? Make it a nice even three?”
“Uh, no. Rewind forty-five seconds and pay close attention to the ‘five days of funk’ part. And three is an odd number, doof. We’ve got work to do. For one, we need to track down Aether and Qin. Do you have a fix on them… or Zees and Pablo, for that matter?”
“I lost my DC to Aether when our chute blew. Figured they kept descending for a while before theirs deployed, thus moving out of range.”
“Wait, what if their chute didn’t pop at all?”
Tom waved a dismissive hand. “These things have backups for the backups. Don’t wack out on me.” He studied the EV’s console. “We’re all equalized here. Weather outside is safe. No natural threats in the vicinity. You ready to step out?”
“I feel like we should wait for Aether’s instructions.”
Tom’s hand hovered in front of the hatch lever. “Honey, I’m eighty-eight kilos. Nearly two meters. I’ve been in this thing with you for almost ninety hours, and while the conversation has been riveting, and while I feel that our relationship has reached a beautiful new level—and I don’t just mean the fact that we’re probably the first people in history to christen an EV, not only once, but twice—and while I love you and never wish to be apart from you, I need to get the hell out of this thing before my spine buckles and my brain implodes.”
Angela looked up at him with loving eyes and a touched smile. “Okay, sweetie. If you’re sure it’s safe outside. And I like it when you turn into Mr. Take-Charge, by the way. Uber-sexy. Though I doubt we’re the first to defile an EV.”
“But during a real evac? Hmmm?” Tom rotated the lever and the hatch glided outward before rising up and over the top of the EV. Hot air flowed in.
“Oh wow, that smell!” Angela said as Tom poked his head out and peered around. “So different… Is that sun-dried landfill I detect?”
For a brief moment, Tom thought they’d landed on a dry lake bed, the surface a seemingly perfect flat, almost all the way to the horizon. In the heat-blurred distance rose a low, rolling mountain range. Above, the pale violet sky was painted with stretching cirrus clouds. Gusty summer winds howled and whistled around the EV, the shiny white sphere an alien blemish on the monotonous landscape.
Tom checked the ground before stepping out. “You know where we are?”
“No, you’re standing in the way.”
“The Parking Lot,” Tom said with genuine awe, and moved aside.
“No way.”
Like referring to Everest or the Amazon on Earth, Epsy’s “Parking Lot” was a renowned land feature. It was one of the 17 Wonders of Epsy, so branded by the station crew. Six years after arriving in orbit, or more precisely, three years after dispatching their initial report and data drop back to Earth, the mission had received its first set of new orders. For Tom, the most intriguing part of the message was not the strange shift in research priorities, but the unexpected intro to their new bosses and colleagues.
At some point during the two decades since launch, the United Exploration Agency had been dissolved, and ongoing responsibility for the projects (and personnel) was split between two private companies, one in Switzerland, the other in Argentina.
Tom knew that 80% of the in-progress missions had been sent to investigate stable Earthlike planets with no known intelligent lifeforms, and that these pre-colonization teams had always ranked higher than his purely-for-science 20%. But he was still shocked to learn of an intense bidding war for the colonization teams while a non-profit organization struggled to drum up interest in the science stations. Fortunately, all of this had been worked out three years before the team received the message.