The railing arm gave way when the priest was only partway up, and Kinsman felt the full weight of the monstrous suit crush down on him. He sank to his knees, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out.
Then the winch took up the slack. Grunting, fumbling, pushing, he scrabbled up the rocky slope with his arms wrapped halfway round the big canister’s middle. He let the winch drag them to the jumper’s edge, then reached out and shut the motor.
With only a hard breath’s pause, Kinsman snapped down the suit’s supporting legs, so the priest could stay upright even though unconscious. Then he clambered onto the platform and took the oxygen line from the rocket tankage. Kneeling at the bulbous suit’s shoulders, he plugged the line into its emergency air tank.
The older man coughed once. That was all.
Kinsman leaned back on his heels. His faceplate was fogging over again, or was it fatigue blurring his sight?
The regenerator was hopelessly smashed, he saw. The old bird must’ve been breathing his own juices.
When the emergency tank registered full, he disconnected the oxygen line and plugged it into a special fitting below the regenerator.
«If you’re dead, this is probably going to kill me, too,» Kinsman said. He purged the entire suit, forcing the contaminating fumes out and replacing them with the oxygen that the jumper’s rocket needed to get them back to the base.
He was close enough now to see through the canister’s tinted visor. The priest’s face was grizzled, eyes closed. Its usual smile was gone; the mouth hung open limply.
Kinsman hauled him up onto the railess platform and strapped him down on the deck. Then he went to the controls and inched the throttle forward just enough to give them the barest minimum of lift.
The jumper almost made it to the crest before its rocket died and bumped them gently on one of the terraces. There was a small emergency tank of oxygen that could have carried them a little farther, Kinsman knew. But he and the priest would need it for breathing.
«Wonder how many Jesuits have been carried home on their shields?» he asked himself as he unbolted the section of decking that the priest was lying on. By threading the winch line through the bolt holes, he made a sort of sled, which he carefully lowered to the ground. Then he took down the emergency oxygen tank and strapped it to the deck section, too.
Kinsman wrapped the line around his fists and leaned against the burden. Even in the moon’s light gravity, it was like trying to haul a truck.
«Down to less than one horsepower,» he grunted, straining forward.
For once he was glad that the scoured rocks had been smoothed clean by micrometeors. He would climb a few steps, wedge himself as firmly as he could, and drag the sled up to him. It took a painful half-hour to reach the ringwall crest.
He could see the base again, tiny and remote as a dream. «All downhill from here,» he mumbled.
He thought he heard a groan.
«That’s it,» he said, pushing the sled over the crest, down the gentle outward slope. «That’s it. Stay with it. Don’t you die on me. Don’t put me through this for nothing!»
«Kinsman!» Bok’s voice. «Are you all right?»
The sled skidded against a yard-high rock. Scrambling after it, Kinsman answered, «I’m bringing him in. Just shut up and leave us alone. I think he’s alive. Now stop wasting my breath.»
Pull it free. Push to get it started downhill again. Strain to hold it back … don’t let it get away from you. Haul it out of craterlets. Watch your step, don’t fall.
«Too damned much uphill in this downhill.»
Once he sprawled flat and knocked his helmet against the edge of the improvised sled. He must have blacked out for a moment. Weakly, he dragged himself up to the oxygen tank and refilled his suit’s supply. Then he checked the priest’s suit and topped off his tank.
«Can’t do that again,» he said to the silent priest. «Don’t know if we’ll make it. Maybe we can. If neither one of us has sprung a leak. Maybe … maybe …»
Time slid away from him. The past and future dissolved into an endless now, a forever of pain and struggle, with the heat of his toil welling up in Kinsman drenchingly.
«Why don’t you say something?» Kinsman panted at the priest. «You can’t die. Understand me? You can’t die! I’ve got to explain it to you. I didn’t mean to kill her. I didn’t even know she was a girl. You can’t tell, can’t even see a face until you’re too close. She must’ve been just as scared as I was. She tried to kill me. I was inspecting their satellite … how’d I know their cosmonaut was a scared kid. I could’ve pushed her off, didn’t have to kill her. But the first thing I knew I was ripping her air lines open. I didn’t know she was a girl, not until it was too late. It doesn’t make any difference, but I didn’t know it, I didn’t know …»
They reached the foot of the ringwall and Kinsman dropped to his knees. «Couple more miles now … straightaway … only a couple more … miles.» His vision was blurred, and something in his head was buzzing angrily.
Staggering to his feet, he lifted the line over his shoulder and slogged ahead. He could just make out the lighted tip of the base’s radio mast.
«Leave him, Chet,» Bok’s voice pleaded from somewhere. «You can’t make it unless you leave him!»
«Shut … up.»
One step after another. Don’t think, don’t count. Blank your mind. Be a mindless plow horse. Plod along, one step at a time. Steer for the radio mast … Just a few … more miles.
«Don’t die on me. Don’t you … die on me. You’re my ticket back. Don’t die on me, priest … don’t die …»
It all went dark. First in spots, then totally. Kinsman caught a glimpse of the barren landscape tilting weirdly, then the grave stars slid across his view, then darkness.
«I tried,» he heard himself say in a far, far distant voice. «I tried.» For a moment or two he felt himself falling, dropping effortlessly into blackness. Then even that sensation died and he felt nothing at all.
A faint vibration buzzed at him. The darkness started to shift, turn gray at the edges. Kinsman opened his eyes and saw the low, curved ceiling of the underground base. The noise was the electrical machinery that lit and warmed and brought good air to the tight little shelter.
«You okay?» Bok leaned over him. His chubby face was frowning worriedly.
Kinsman weakly nodded.
«Father Lemoyne’s going to pull through,» Bok said, stepping out of the cramped space between the two bunks. The priest was awake but unmoving, his eyes staring blankly upward. His canister suit had been removed and one arm was covered with a plastic cast.
Bok explained. «I’ve been getting instructions from the Earthside medics. They’re sending a team up; should be here in another thirty hours. He’s in shock, and his arm’s broken. Otherwise he seems pretty good … exhausted, but no permanent damage.»
Kinsman pushed himself up to a sitting position on the bunk and leaned his back against the curving metal wall. His helmet and boots were off, but he was still wearing the rest of his pressure suit.
«You went out and got us,» he realized.
Bok nodded. «You were only about a mile away. I could hear you on the radio. Then you stopped talking. I had to go out.»
«You saved my life.»
«And you saved the priest’s.»
Kinsman stopped a moment, remembering. «I did a lot of raving out there, didn’t I?»
Bok wormed his shoulders uncomfortably.
«Any of it intelligible?»
«Sort of. It’s, uh … it’s all on the automatic recorder, you know. All conversations. Nothing I can do about that.»
That’s it. Now everybody knows.
«You haven’t heard the best of it, though,» Bok said. He went to the shelf at the end of the priest’s bunk and took a little plastic container. «Look at this.»