There was another quake—she was being shook violently, pitching forward and back again, then yawing sideways with a judder. She couldn't move to get away—was she still in the structure? She could see the night-sky, but the roof had been painted like a planetarium, so it must be that—at least she was on her back. She felt cold, so cold, old and tired that this could be death. Someone touched her shoulder—the ancient man was still by her side. Jacqui looked across and saw Marcie.
Her fellow-explorer was at the helm of one of the buggies. Jacqui realised that she was strapped to the side-pod of the vehicle. They were moving at speed, their route dimly-lit by the moon of Phobos—no wonder she felt so cold—what temperature was it? She'd never been out this late on Mars. Her backside and the top of her right thigh were tingling and felt like they were burnt. Could she be strapped to something hot? No, Marcie wouldn't do that, and anyway the electric motors for the wheels were down by the drive-shafts. It could be the gel from the batteries though….Where was the Martian?
Jacqui woke up in the sick-bay of the Life-Support Unit. She was still strapped down, but Marcie released the ties from the sides of the bed once she saw that her patient was fully alert. Jacqui was wearing a gown and had a headache that felt as if her brain was being kneaded like bread-dough. There was evidently a fluid-preserving dressing on her rump and the back of her leg, which crackled as she shifted and took a much needed-drink of water for her parched throat. IV lines ran into her arm, and she could smell an astringent pong that signified Marcie must have given her a detoxifying body-wash. What had become of her?
“I found you out in the western plains. You were in one of the canals, next to a flat boulder in the middle of a round sink-basin. You weren't exactly a picture of elegance, as you were rump up, face down on your knees with your space-boots at a forty-five degree angle in the air. If your bike was any closer to you, I'd have said that you did a flyer over the handlebars, but it was too far away, so it looks like you simply collapsed. I left it where it was, by the way, it will still be there tomorrow—if you're up to going back then. I know how close you two are….”
“But what made you come out all that way, Marcie? If you hadn't I'd have died, so thank you.”
“One of the snake-robots took it into its addled computer-brain to slither away from the sector. I programmed it to gather soil-samples in, making it as far as the area you were exploring. I saw your bike parked-up, but no sign of you. So I came over to check what you were doing—see if you were OK.”
“I found something, a structure, I thought, and I know that it's going to sound mad, but I was talking to someone….It's all a bit hazy though.”
“I'm not surprised. The gas spectrometer on my rover went crazy, bleeping out a warning for high-levels of methane and nitrogen. It could be that the methane is being released by rotting vegetation deep under the soil—we'll mark the area for excavation when the drill-team arrive. There could be oil down there. Did you take a tumble off your bike? There was a three inch tear in the backside of your suit and you've a large bruise forming on your hip. The rip must have been allowing gas in, which caused you to hallucinate. This intrusion may have slowed when you were sitting on your arse on the bike and the boulder, but the cold and gas burned your skin when you were upside down. I patched the hole with gaffer-tape to get you back—arguably the best invention of the 20th century!”
“That explains the dressing, and did you give me a precautionary detox wash-down? I smell like nail-polish remover—not that I've needed to use that for years.”
“But of course—who knows what effects the local gases can have—we're discovering new ones all of the time. And anyway, there have to be some perks to the job….”
Jacqui could have done without the cheeky grin and wink that Marcie gave her, as she said this, but figured that giving her saviour a brief thrill was a small price to pay. She'd seen plenty of naked bodies when working as nurse herself—attractive and less-so.
Joe was cooking a celebratory meal for the convalescent, so enticing aromas were wafting around the landing-station. They took it in turns to cook, but the women acknowledged that he was more skilled in combining their dry food-supplies into something palatable and even tasty.
While Marcie went to see how the cooking was going, Jacqui leant back, and thought of her encounter with the ancient Martian. It was a shame that it wasn't true. Perhaps she'd half-remembered a situation from some fictional adventure written by Ray Bradbury or Isaac Asimov, but it all seemed so real at the time.