My thoughts came too fast to follow. Before they had reached any conclusion we had moved to the lock, opened it, and were standing on the broken surface of Vandell. McAndrew automatically fell behind to let me take the lead. Neither of us had any experience with this type of terrain, but he knew my antennae for trouble were better than his. I tuned my suit to the reflected radar signal from our pod and we began to pick our way carefully forward.
It was a grim, tortuous progress. There was no direct path that could be taken across the rocks. Every tenth step seemed to bring me to a dead end, a place where we had to retrace our steps halfway back to our own pod. Beneath our feet, the surface of the planet shivered and groaned, as though it was ready to open up and swallow us. The landscape as our suits presented it to us was a scintillating nightmare of blacks and grays. (Vision in nonvisible wavelengths is always disconcerting — microwave more than most).
Around us, the swirling dust came in shivering waves that whispered along the outside of our helmets. I could detect a definite cycle, with a peak every seven minutes or so. Radio static followed the same period, rising and falling in volume to match the disturbance outside.
I had tuned my set to maximum gain and was transmitting a continuous call signal. Nothing came back from the bright radar blip of the other pod. It was now only a couple of hundred yards ahead but we were approaching agonizingly slowly.
At fifty yards I noticed a lull in the rustle around us. I switched to visible wavelengths, and waited impatiently while the suit’s processor searched for the best combination of frequencies to penetrate the murk. After half a second the internal suit display announced that there would be a short delay; the sensors were covered with ionized dust particles that would have to be repelled. That took another ten seconds, then I had an image. Peering ahead on visible wavelengths I thought I could see a new shape in front of us, a flat oval hugging the dark ground.
“Visible signal, Mac,” I said over the radio. “Tell your suit.”
That was all I could say. I know the profile of a pod, I’ve seen them from every angle. And the silhouette ahead of us looked wrong. It had a twisted, sideways cant, bulging towards the left. I increased pace, stumbling dangerously along smooth slabs and around jagged pinnacles, striding recklessly across a quivering deep abyss. Mac was following, ready to help me if I got in trouble — unless he was taking worse risks himself, which was certainly not beyond him. I could hear his breath, loud on the suit radio.
It was their pod. No doubt at all. And as I came closer I could see the long, gaping hole in one side. It takes a lot to smash a transfer pod beyond repair, but that one would never fly again. Inside it would be airless, lifeless, filled only with the choking dust that was Vandell’s only claim to an atmosphere.
And the people inside? Would Jan or Sven have thought to wear suits before descent? It would make a difference only to the appearance of the corpses. Even with suits, anything that could kill their signal beacon would kill them too.
I took my final step to the pod, stooped to peer in through the split in the side, and stopped breathing. Somewhere deep inside me, contrary to all logic, there still lived a faint ghost of hope. It died as I looked. Two figures lay side by side on the floor of the pod, neither of them moving.
I groaned, saw Mac coming to stand beside me, and switched on my helmet light for a better view or the interior. Then I straightened up so fast that my head banged hard on the pod’s tough metal.
They were both wearing suits, their helmets were touching — and as the light from outside penetrated the interior of the pod, they swung around in unison to face me. They were both rubbing at their suit faceplates with gloved hands, clearing a space in a thick layer of white dust there.
“Jan!” My shout must have blasted Mac rigid. “Sven! Mac, they’re alive!”
“Christ, Jeanie, I see that. Steady on, you’ll burst my eardrums.” He sounded as though he himself was going to burst, from sheer pleasure and relief.
We scrambled around to the main hatch of the pod and I tried to yank it open. It wouldn’t move. Mac lent a hand, and still nothing would budge — everything was too bent and battered. Back we went to the hole in the ship’s side, and found them trying to enlarge it enough to get out.
“Stand back,” I said. “Mac and I can cut that in a minute.”
Then I realized they couldn’t hear me or see me. Their faceplates were covered again with dust, and they kept leaning together to touch helmets.
“Mac! There’s something wrong with their suits.”
“Of course there is.” He sounded disgusted with my stupidity. “Radio’s not working — we already knew that. They’re communicating with each other by direct speech through the helmet contact. Vision units are done for, too — see, all they have are the faceplates, and the dust sticks and covers them unless they keep on clearing it. The whole atmosphere of this damned planet is nothing more than charged dust particles. Our suits are repelling them, or we’d see nothing at visible wavelengths. Here, let me in there.”
He stuck his head through the opening, grabbed the arm of Jan’s suit, and pulled us so that we were all four touching helmets. We could talk to each other.
And for that first ten minutes that’s what we did: talk, in a language that defies all logical analysis. I would call it the language of love, but that phrase has been used too often for another (and less powerful) emotional experience.
Then we enlarged the hole so they could climb out. At that point I thought that we had won, that our troubles and difficulties were all over. In fact, they were just starting.
Their pod was in even worse shape than it looked. The battering from flying boulders that had ruined the hull should have left intact the internal electronics, computers, and communications links, components with no moving parts that ought to withstand any amount of shaking and violent motion. But they were all dead. The pod was nothing but a lifeless chunk of metal and plastics. Worse still, all the computer systems in Jan and Sven’s suits had failed, too. They had no radios, no external vision systems — not even temperature controls. Only the purely mechanical components, like air supply and suit pressure, were still working.
I couldn’t imagine anything that could destroy the equipment so completely and leave Jan and Sven alive, but those questions would have to come later. For the moment our first priority was the return to the other pod. If I had thought it dangerous work coming, going back would be much worse. Jan and Sven were almost blind, they couldn’t step across chasms or walk along a thin slab of rock. Without radios, I couldn’t even tell them to back up if I decided we had to retrace part of our path.
We all four linked hands, to make a chain with Mac on the left-hand end and me on the right, and began a strange crab-like movement back in the direction of the other pod. I daren’t hurry, and it took hours. Four times I had to stop completely, while the ground beneath us went through exceptionally violent paroxysms of shaking and shuddering. We stood motionless, tightly gripping each other’s gloved hands. If it was scary for me, it must have been hell for Jan and Sven. Mac and I were their lifeline, if we lost contact they wouldn’t make twenty meters safely across the broken surface. While the shaking went on, I was picking up faint sounds in my radio. McAndrew and Wicklund had their helmets together, and Wicklund seemed to be doing all the talking. For five minutes I heard only occasional grunts from Mac through his throat mike.