“You say it moved. Did it fall on you?”
“Negative. It swung around.” She had a quick thought. “It must be suspended from above. Can you see how?”
There was a short pause. “It’s hanging from what must be a hinged branch just below me. The branch protrudes from a thick trunklike structure close to the wall.”
She struggled ineffectually. “Try to make it move away again. I’m pretty stuck. And I don’t want to risk burning out my winch motor.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Kick it!”
She could hear his breathing over the suit radio. Reassuring, somehow. He was only a meter away, but she couldn’t see a damn thing but the blotchy pattern on the mat.
“Unh! Unh! Anything happen?”
“Negative. What’d you do?”
“Thunked it with my boot a couple times. Didn’t seem to have any effect.”
“Well, something I was doing caused it to move.”
“How do plants move, anyway? No muscles, no nervous system.”
“Don’t know that this is a plant. Still, even plants on Earth can move. Lots of ’em track the sun, and some can instantly collapse their leaves in response to a stimulus.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that, uh, sensitive plant from botany class.”
“But there’s a downside. They have to grow the leaves open again, and it can take days.”
“Cheery thought.” There was a short pause. “Say, there’s another one of those brown spots forming on your mat. It must be your suit exhaust.”
The thought struck both of them at the same time.
“Hey, what about—”
“Yeah, I’ll try a short blast from my intake.”
“Marc? Just tease it with the oxygen. We want it to twitch, not collapse.”
“Right.”
The seconds ticked slowly by. Then she heard, “Okay, I’m in position now. Ready to start. One-second jet coming up.”
The mat pressing against her shuddered.
“It just twitched.”
“I barely grazed it. I’ll try a couple more short blasts—”
There was a sudden feeling of lightness. The mat heaved violently away from her. Her helmet was hopelessly smeared.
“Climb, Julia! Quick!” Marc shouted.
“I can’t see. Visor’s smeared.” She grabbed the lines to be sure they were unsnarled. A quick command to the winch cranked her up. “Tell me where I’m going.”
“Go! You’re coming up alongside it. Good! Just keep coming up. Okay, you’re level with the hinge. If you clear it you’re home free—Yes! you’re clear!”
She struggled on another couple of seconds, then stopped, sweat pouring off her face, suit fans humming. “Wow, hot on Mars. Surely a first.” She felt curiously exhilarated and exhausted at the same time.
“We’ve got a one-klick climb ahead of us.”
“I know. I’m okay. Just gotta clear my visor. I want to vid that hinge, then we can go. What incredible stuff we’ve found!”
She went into automatic drive on the way back. Run the winch, negotiate around the ledges and rocks, run it some more. Steady does it.
They stopped for new tanks at the ledge, took another food break, then finished the climb. They didn’t say much. Astronaut training; talk breaks concentration, which you need all the more as you tire.
But she could feel her mind working in the background, processing and sorting all the new information. When she sat down to write her report, it would all be there.
It was dusk when they reached the surface. She climbed up into a ruddy sky darkening in the east.
The residual moisture on their suits froze to rime and fell from their suits as a dusting of snow. The flakes fumed away within seconds.
Marc dismantled and stowed their climbing rig as she carefully settled her precious samples, sealed safely away from their oxygen atmosphere. She was already planning how to culture them in the greenhouse.
Then they were off, Marc carefully following their tracks back to the hab.
They’d squirted the briefest of “we’re back” messages before making final preparations for leaving. Now, a mug of hot tea in hand, she started to put in a call to base.
